Definition of "passerine"

passerine

/ˈpæsəɹaɪn/

adjective
not comparable
1. Of or relating to the Passeriformes order of perching birds, which are generally anisodactyl (“having three toes pointing forward and one back, which facilitates perching”).
2. (archaic) Chiefly in the former names of some birds: approximately the size of a sparrow.
noun
plural passerines
1. Any bird of the order Passeriformes, which comprises more than half of all bird species.
  Quotations
  If we examine the names of the Orders of Birds, we find that they are in Latin, […] We might venture to anglicize the terminations of the names which Cuvier gives to the divisions of these Orders: thus the Predators are the Diurnals and the Nocturnals; the Passerines are the Dentirostres, the Fissirostres, the Conirostres, the Tenuirostres, and the Syndactyls: the word lustre showing that the former termination is allowable.
  1840, William Whewell, “Aphorisms Concerning the Language of Science. Aphorism XVI. In the Composition and Inflexion of Technical Terms, Philological Analogies are to be Preserved if Possible, but Modified According to Scientific Convenience.”, in The Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, Founded upon Their History. […], volume I, London: John W[illiam] Parker, […]; Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: J. and J. J. Deighton, paragraph 3, pages cx–cxi