ostrich [ME] The first part of this word comes from Latin avis ‘bird’, but the second part goes back to the Greek name for a very different bird—strouthos ‘sparrow’. The fuller term in ancient Greek was megas strouthos ‘large sparrow’. It was also called strouthokamelos or ‘sparrow camel’, perhaps in recognition of its long neck. There was a traditional belief that hunted ostriches would bury their heads in the sand, thinking that this would hide them from view. From this we get the use of ‘ostrich’ to mean a person who refuses to face reality or accept facts, and also the phrase to bury your head in the sand [M19th].