sanderling
noun
sanderling is a noun meaning “A small wading bird, of species Calidris alba, that breeds in the Arctic and winters on sandy shores and estuaries around the world” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled S-A-N-D-E-R-L-I-N-G, and it appears about once in every 25 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of sanderling is sanderlings.
What does sanderling mean?
noun
- 1
A small wading bird, of species Calidris alba, that breeds in the Arctic and winters on sandy shores and estuaries around the world.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Forms of sanderling
- sanderlings plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is sanderling?
Sanderling appears about once in every 25 million words in written English, the 152,206th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Sanderling in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense Calidris alba:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | bécasseau sanderling |
| German | Sanderling |
| Portuguese | maçarico-branco |
| Spanish | playero, correlimos |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does sanderling come from?
First use appears c. 1602. Possibly a descendant from Old English *sandyrðling, from sand (“sand”) + yrðling (“plowman”), though not attested in Old or Middle English.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).