Ea"gle (?), n. [OE. egle, F. aigle, fr. L. aquila; prob. named from its color, fr. aquilus dark-colored, brown; cf. Lith. aklas blind. Cf. Aquiline.]

1. (Zoöl.) Any large, rapacious bird of the Falcon family, esp. of the genera Aquila and Haliæetus. The eagle is remarkable for strength, size, graceful figure, keenness of vision, and extraordinary flight. The most noted species are the golden eagle (Aquila chrysaëtus); the imperial eagle of Europe (A. mogilnik or imperialis); the American bald eagle (Haliæetus leucocephalus); the European sea eagle (H. albicilla); and the great harpy eagle (Thrasaetus harpyia). The figure of the eagle, as the king of birds, is commonly used as an heraldic emblem, and also for standards and emblematic devices. See Bald eagle, Harpy, and Golden eagle.

2. A gold coin of the United States, of the value of ten dollars.

3. (Astron.) A northern constellation, containing Altair, a star of the first magnitude. See Aquila.

4. The figure of an eagle borne as an emblem on the standard of the ancient Romans, or so used upon the seal or standard of any people.

Though the Roman eagle shadow thee. Tennyson.

☞ Some modern nations, as the United States, and France under the Bonapartes, have adopted the eagle as their national emblem. Russia, Austria, and Prussia have for an emblem a double-headed eagle.

Bald eagle. See Bald eagle. -- Bold eagle. See under Bold. -- Double eagle, a gold coin of the United States worth twenty dollars. -- Eagle hawk(Zoöl.), a large, crested, South American hawk of the genus Morphnus. -- Eagle owl(Zoöl.), any large owl of the genus Bubo, and allied genera; as the American great horned owl (Bubo Virginianus), and the allied European species (B. maximus). See Horned owl. -- Eagle ray (Zoöl.), any large species of ray of the genus Myliobatis (esp. M. aquila). -- Eagle vulture (Zoöl.), a large West African bid (Gypohierax Angolensis), intermediate, in several respects, between the eagles and vultures.

-- Webster's unabridged 1913