† mock-nightingalen.
British regional. Obsolete.
Any of various warblers; spec. (a) a warbler of the genus Sylvia, esp. the blackcap, S. atricapilla; (b) the sedge warbler, Acrocephalus schoenoboenus.In quot. ?1706: (apparently) the name of a song.
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?1706 E. Hickeringill Priest-craft: 2nd Pt. iii. 35 Singing Men and singing Boys, that instead of rehearsing the Creed, cant it, like the Tune called the Mock-Nightingale.
1766 T. Pennant Brit. Zool. ii. 101 It [sc. the blackcap]..is called in Norfolk the mock-nightingale.
1817 J. F. Stephens Shaw's Gen. Zool. X. ii. 649 The song of this bird [sc. the Black-cap Warbler] is very fine, and by many is thought as much of as that of the Nightingale, which has caused it to be called the Mock Nightingale in Norfolk.
1831 J. Rennie Montagu's Ornithol. Dict. (ed. 2) 42 It does not appear to me that the provincial names of Mock-nightingale, Nettle-creeper, Nettle-monger, are ever applied to the Blackcap, but to the White-throat and the Fauvette.
1878 Encycl. Brit. XVI. 541/1 The name..Mock-Nightingale is in England occasionally given to some of the Warblers, especially the Blackcap..and the Sedge-bird.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, September 2002; most recently modified version published online March 2019).
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n.?1706