Definition of "bulbul" [bul•bul]

• Any of various passerine, chiefly tropical Old World songbirds of the family Pycnonotidae, having grayish or brownish plumage. (noun)
• A songbird often mentioned in Persian poetry and thought to be a nightingale. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Sultan's temper was sometimes fiery, said foreign officials of the 1960s, but his habit of working long into the night earned him the nickname "bulbul" or "nightingale"."
• "The "bulbul" is a "species of the sub-family pycnonoti of the Thrush family, admired in the East for their song as the nightingale is in Europe.""
• "They pass as far South as Shiraz, where they meet the plump little Indian bulbul, which is often mistaken for the Shiraz poets 'singing-bird."