Definition of "cockatoo" [cock•a•too]

• Any of various large parrots, especially of the genus Kakatoe of Australia and adjacent areas, characterized by a long erectile crest. (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.

• "But everybody else had gone to "cockatoo" -- to sit on the top rail of the enclosure and look down at the maddened creatures, so at length he fastened his bridle to a tree and proceeded gingerly to follow their example."
• "Punishment is off-hand and severe; but the cockatoo is a sly bird, and often the fury of the fruit-grower expends itself in merely verbal explosions."
• "Walking into a little room, we observed that besides the crocodile there were in it parrots of the species known as cockatoo, and also a group of monkeys in a special case in a recess."