Read along with the three podcasts, or open the full dictionary entry for Pigeon for the definition, Arabic meaning, synonyms and example sentences.
Narrator: Today's word is "Pigeon" — noun, pronounced /ˈpɪdʒɪn/, with the stress on "pi".
Narrator: A pigeon is a stout, short-necked bird of the dove family, commonly seen in towns and cities.
Narrator: In plain English, it is that plump grey bird pecking about the pavement for crumbs.
Narrator: It comes from the Old French word pijon, meaning a young dove, which itself traces back to the Latin pipio, a chirping bird.
Narrator: A common collocation is "carrier pigeon", describing a bird trained to fly home carrying written messages.
Narrator: It differs from dove, which suggests a slender, gentle bird of peace, while pigeon suggests something sturdier and far more urban.
Narrator: Figuratively, to call someone a pigeon is to call them an easy target for deception, and to say something is not your pigeon means it is not your concern.
Narrator: The word matters in ornithology, in racing and breeding circles, in military history, and in city planning where roosting birds are managed.
Narrator: So remember: a pigeon is the familiar city dove, humble in the square but historically a trusted messenger.
Speaker A: Why do pigeons seem to be absolutely everywhere in British towns?
Speaker B: Because the PIGEON, whose name comes from the Old French pijon for a young dove, was domesticated for centuries and simply moved into our buildings as if they were cliffs.
Speaker A: So the city birds are really escaped pets gone feral?
Speaker B: Precisely that, and their homing instinct is so sharp that armies once staked whole battles on them.
Speaker A: Example sentences?
Speaker B: "A pigeon landed on the windowsill and stared at my sandwich" shows the everyday urban sense. "His grandfather kept racing pigeons in a loft behind the house" shows the sporting sense. "Honestly, that problem is not my pigeon" shows the idiomatic sense of something outside your responsibility.
Speaker A: Common mistakes?
Speaker B: Spell it p-i-g-e-o-n, never pidgeon, and keep it apart from pidgin, which is a simplified contact language. The plural is simply pigeons.
Speaker A: Close relatives?
Speaker B: Dove is the poetic cousin, rock dove is the near twin of the city bird, and squab is the alternative used for a young one in cookery. The word keeps its cobbled-square charm!
Speaker B: Let's use "pigeon" in AI prompts — useful for wildlife image classifiers and for city-council reporting dashboards.
Speaker A: How would it apply to an image model?
Speaker B: Ask for a labelling specification first.
Prompt: Write a labelling specification for an image classifier that distinguishes a pigeon from a dove, a gull and a crow, listing the visual features an annotator should check.
Speaker A: And for a council reporting tool?
Speaker B: Have it design the intake form.
Prompt: Design a public reporting form for pigeon roosting complaints with fields for location, nesting evidence, photo upload and urgency, and explain the validation rules for each field.
Speaker A: Could it help with content quality?
Speaker B: Yes, ask it to guard the spelling.
Prompt: Write a linting rule with test cases that flags the misspelling pidgeon and warns when pidgin is used where pigeon is meant.
Speaker A: One more?
Speaker B: Let's build a small hobby application.
Prompt: Draft a database schema and REST endpoints for a pigeon racing club app that records birds, lofts, race routes and return times, including sensible indexes.
Pigeon — meaning in Arabic & definition More P courses GL Dictionary