Some bird names might seem obvious in terms of pronunciation, but they aren’t always as simple as they seem. One such is the plumbeous bird, whether it’s a plumbeous vireo, plumbeous kite, plumbeous ibis, or any other plumbeous species – pigeons, hawks, rails, antbirds, seedeaters, or euphonias. There are 18 birds that have “plumbeous” in their name, but what does it mean, and how do you say it?

What Plumbeous Means

For years, I always thought “plumbeous” meant having a plume, an elongated fancy feather of some type. That isn’t correct at all, and in fact, the word just refers to color – specifically, a dull, heavy, or relatively uninspired shade, often gray or lead. Originating from the Latin plumbum meaning lead or plumbeus meaning leaden, any gray shade will do.

When checking out all the different plumbeous bird species, it’s easy enough to correlate the color, since each of the birds have an overall grayish appearance.

But how do you actually say plumbeous?

How to Pronounce Plumbeous

This can be one of the trickier bird name pronunciations. Not only can the actual sounds vary, but the number of syllables in the word can also vary depending on a birder’s preferences.

The name can be either two or three syllables. Let’s start with just two – plum and beous.

Plum could seem obvious, first “pluhm” rhyming with rum, bum, chum, some, and drum. An alternative, however, is “plooom” to rhyme with doom, bloom, plume, flume, and tomb.

The second syllable, beous, also has two typical pronunciations if it is indeed spoken in just one syllable. The first is “buhs” rhyming with truss, cuss, fuss, muss, and schluss, which the second is “bihs” rhyming with kiss, miss, sis, bliss, and this.

Where emphasis is placed on the word can also have some impact on the overall pronunciation. With two syllables each having two options, we end up with eight possible pronunciation variations:

• PLUHM-buhs
• PLUHM-bihs
• pluhm-BUHS
• pluhm-BIHS
• PLOOOM-buhs
• PLOOOM-bihs
• plooom-BUHS
• plooom-BIHS

So far, so good. But what about if a birder chooses a three-syllable pronunciation? The first syllable, pluhm or plooom, remains the same, but now there will be a middle syllable, “bee” that rhymes with sea, tea, fee, key, and lee. The final buhs (or bihs) syllable also remains the same, but without the first letter, thus “uhs” or “ihs” respectively. Overall, adding in changes in emphasis as well, the third syllable gives us twelve more possible pronunciations:

• PLUHM-bee-uhs
• pluhm-BEE-uhs
• pluhm-bee-UHS
• PLUHM-bee-ihs
• pluhm-BEE-ihs
• pluhm-bee-IHS
• PLOOOM-bee-uhs
• plooom-BEE-uhs
• plooom-bee-UHS
• PLOOOM-bee-ihs
• plooom-BEE-ihs
• plooom-bee-IHS

In total, that means twenty different ways to pronounce the now much more confusing plumbeous. For me, I tend toward the three-syllable variation with a “plooom” and “uhs” pronunciation, emphasis on the PLOOOM. That does not make my pronunciation any better or worse than any other option, just my individual choice. Fortunately, no matter which way you say it – syllables, emphasis, or sounds – the birds don’t mind!