homing pigeon

homing pigeon (plural homing pigeons)

2. A variety of domesticated rock pigeon (Columba livia) that has been selectively bred to be able to find its way home over extremely long distances.
   • 1960, P G Wodehouse, chapter XV, in Jeeves in the Offing, London: Herbert Jenkins, →OCLC:

     “What I mean is, just stick around and you'll probably find the thing.” “You think it will return?” “I do.” “Like a homing pigeon?” “That's the idea.”

   • 2023 September 30, Hannah Murphy, quoting Linda Yaccarino, “The wildest job in Silicon Valley”, in FT Weekend, Life & Arts, page 17:

     In her telling, she sought Musk out after the deal closed, pressing him to meet and discuss how she could make NBCUniversal a bigger media partner “via email, text, I may have been considering a homing pigeon”.

• The term carrier pigeon is often used, especially in newspaper and magazine articles, for a homing pigeon or racing pigeon that carries messages. Many pigeon fanciers (particularly homer men and homer women) consider this to be a misnomer because the term is outdated and originally referred to the ancestors of present-day Old English carriers. These "carrier pigeons" were formerly used to carry messages before the modern homing pigeon was developed in the 1800s (initially in Belgium and Britain), but is today strictly an exhibition pigeon or show pigeon that has mostly lost its strong homing instinct. The "carrier pigeon" was also one of the breeds used to develop the modern homing pigeon and therefore does have some "carrier blood" in it.^[1]

• carrier pigeon, homer, homer pigeon, messenger pigeon, racer, racing homer, racing pigeon