Definition of "goatsucker" [goat•suck•er]

• Any of various chiefly nocturnal, insectivorous birds of the family Caprimulgidae, which includes the nighthawk and the whippoorwill. (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.

• "_) [2] The epithet _bald_, applied to this species, whose head is thickly covered with feathers, is equally improper and absurd with the titles goatsucker, kingsfisher, &c. bestowed on others, and seems to have been occasioned by the white appearance of the head, when contrasted with, the dark colour of the rest of the plumage."
• "The Nighthawk Chordeiles minoris not a hawk, of course-- it is a "goatsucker" or nightjar, a bird that flies through the night engulfing insects with its great maw like, as Libby says, a whale cruising through plankton."
• "Dad getting chased by goatsucker ruined the holidays 7,5"