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PlainSpell

wheatear

/ˈʍiːtɪəɹ/noun

wheatear is a noun meaning “Any of various passerine birds of the genus Oenanthe that feed on insects” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled W-H-E-A-T-E-A-R, and it appears about once in every 22 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of wheatear is wheatears.

What does wheatear mean?

noun

  1. 1

    Any of various passerine birds of the genus Oenanthe that feed on insects,

  2. 2

    especially, the northern wheatear (Oenanthe oenanthe)

  3. 3

    An ear of wheat.

  4. 4

    A decorative pattern resembling an ear of wheat.

  5. 5

    An anomalous form of carnation, producing small green ears instead of flowers.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How do you pronounce wheatear?

  • /ˈʍiːtɪəɹ/
  • /ˈwiːtɪəɹ/

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-wheatear.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Forms of wheatear

  • wheatears plural
  • white-ear

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How common is wheatear?

Wheatear appears about once in every 22 million words in written English, the 143,405th 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).

Wheatear in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

In the sense birds of genus Oenanthe:

LanguageWords
Frenchtraquet
GermanSteinschmätzer
Spanishcollalba

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 wheatear come from?

Uncertain. Probably a back-formation from Middle English whit ers (“white arse”), after the prominent white rump of many species. Compare dialect forms white rump, white-tail. Possibly a compound of wheat + ear or white + ear. Attested since the seventeenth century as wheat-ears or wheatgear.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).