racqueted

English

Broad-billed Motmot showing racqueted tail

Verb

racqueted

1. simple past and past participle of racquet

Adjective

racqueted (not comparable)

1. (ornithology) Having a spatulate endpart beyond the main tail section.
   • 1922, The Avicultural Magazine, page 163:

     Sometimes one finds oneself in the domain of the Motmots, which look at you from their thickets, swinging their curious racqueted tails from right to left after the manner of a clock's pendulum, and uttering bubbling notes...

   • 2010, Bruce Campbell, Elizabeth Lack, A Dictionary of Birds, →ISBN, page 516:

     All 3 African birds in this group have long outer tail feathers, racqueted in C. spatulata.

   • 1978, David William Snow, An atlas of speciation in African non-passerine birds, page 312:

     C. spatulata agrees with abyssinica in its pale blue underparts, but it has a long, forked, racqueted tail which is rather different in pattern, and it has rufous brown (not pale blue) greater wing-coverts.