birdie

1 of 2

noun

bird·​ie ˈbər-dē 

plural birdies

1

: a little bird

2

: a golf score of one stroke less than par on a hole compare eagle entry 1

3

: shuttlecock

In Asia, badminton is an obsession … . In one preliminary match in Malaysia, 21,000 people came out to watch the speeding birdie.

—Jennifer Boeth

birdie

2 of 2

verb

birdied; birdieing

transitive verb

: to score a birdie on

Examples of birdie in a Sentence

Noun

I made a birdie on the fifth hole.

I made birdie on the fifth hole.

Verb

She birdied the second hole.

Recent Examples on the Web

Noun

Fuzzy Zoeller shoots a 3-under 67 to beat Greg Norman by eight strokes in the 18-hole playoff at Winged Foot GC for the U.S. Open title. 1990 — Hale Irwin makes an 8-foot birdie putt on the 91st hole to beat Mike Donald in the first sudden-death playoff to decide the U.S. Open. —Houston Mitchell, Los Angeles Times, 18 June 2025

His major-sealing 64-foot putt for birdie became a proper-noun moment in recent golf history. —Steven Louis Goldstein, New York Times, 18 June 2025

Verb

Ben Hogan also birdied the 71st and 72nd holes in his victory in 1953. —Justin Ray, New York Times, 16 June 2025

Rory McIlroy also displayed a lot of frustration, at one point breaking a tee marker with his club, but did manage to birdie two of his final four holes to make it to the weekend. —Mike Fore, Forbes.com, 14 June 2025

Word History

First Known Use

Noun

1768, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Verb

1921, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for birdie

• gurdy
• purdy
• sturdy
• thirty
• wordy