buzzard

Any of several Old World birds of prey of the genus Buteo with broad wings and a broad tail.

Any scavenging bird, such as the American black vulture (Coragyps atratus) or the turkey vulture (Cathartes aura).

In North America, a curmudgeonly or cantankerous man; an old person; a mean, greedy person.

Perhaps the crusty old buzzard loved his only child more than anyone had given him credit for all these years — maybe even more than he himself had realized.

A blockhead; a dunce.

1640, George Herbert, Jacula Prudentum; or, Outlandish Proverbs, Sentences, etc., in The Remains of that Sweet Singer of the Temple George Herbert, London: Pickering, 1841, p. 142, An old man’s shadow is better than a young buzzard’s sword.

It is common, to a proverb, to call one who can not be taught, or who continues obstinately ignorant, a buzzard.

Synonym of double bogey.

A bastard.

A surname from Old French.