Definition of "peregrine falcon" []

• A widely distributed, swift-flying bird of prey (Falco peregrinus), having gray and white plumage, much used in falconry. Also called duck hawk. (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.

• "The peregrine falcon — the tiercel, he remembered — was awake and about to go hunting."
• "Supper was no better, although Mortimer did refer to the queen just once, when he broke off in the middle of a story about a peregrine falcon which had escaped from the mews and decimated the population of a neighbor’s dovecot, to ask me if Elizabeth liked hawking."