adjective

• 1Relating to an animal's ability to return to a place or territory after traveling a distance away from it.

  ‘a strong homing instinct’

  More example sentences

  • ‘Their homing abilities could also provide scientists with new clues to the long-debated role of the Earth's magnetic fields in animal movements and migrations.’
  • ‘The relocation operation relies on the birds' excellent natural homing instinct, which compels them to return to the site where they hatched.’
  • ‘To see whether they have a homing ability, Boles caught more than 100 lobsters in different locations and transported them for about an hour in various deceptive ways to a test site.’
  • ‘The Manx shearwater has a phenomenal homing ability.’
  • ‘‘We can't tell at this stage which of these two types of homing behavior the sea snakes are displaying,’ said Reed.’
  • ‘Male black bears have remarkable homing instincts as well and have traveled great distances, some up to 400 miles, to return to their homestead.’
  • ‘This homing behavior has been documented in other parts of the globe.’
  • ‘In one astounding example of determination and homing instinct, a leopard translocated from its range in South Africa walked 540 km home, the distance between Chennai and Hyderabad.’
  • ‘Over generations of grazing on the same land the flock has developed a homing instinct, which means that they do not stray from their pastures.’
  • ‘It should now be clear that trying to settle this flock elsewhere is almost impossible bearing in mind their strong homing instincts.’
  • ‘Take the homing instinct: how do the pigeons do it?’
  • ‘The sport of pigeon racing is built around a central mystery: the strange homing instinct of the pigeon.’
  • ‘Homing behavior is known to occur in other reptiles, such as crocodiles and sea turtles.’

  1. 1.1(of a pigeon) trained to fly home from a great distance and bred for long-distance racing.
     ‘I thought the bird should make its own way home being a homing pigeon, but I was quite happy to give it a lift.’
     More example sentences

     • ‘On one of his trips, Amundsen took a homing pigeon with him.’
     • ‘The romantic image of the homing pigeon using mysterious forces to navigate its way hundreds of miles back to its perch appears to be no such thing.’
     • ‘One worker at the same site stole diamonds by tying a small bag to a homing pigeon, which would fly the diamonds back to his house.’
     • ‘A flock of homing pigeons soared into the azure sky, dispersing before the gates of the city, each striking towards its own destination.’
     • ‘A homing pigeon has turned up at a South African diamond mine after being blown off course while flying to England from France, its owner said yesterday.’
     • ‘Deep furrows creased his handsome face as he attached the vital message to the homing pigeon's leg.’
     • ‘So instead of going to Fort Jesus I went back to the carpets and antique shop like a homing pigeon on its way home.’
     • ‘A homing pigeon with a small bar magnet attached to the back of its head takes much longer to fly home!’
     • ‘The precise navigation of birds has been studied most extensively in migratory songbirds and the homing pigeon.’
     • ‘Researchers say their study proves for the first time that homing pigeons can sense Earth's magnetic field.’
     • ‘There is general agreement that homing pigeons use the sun as a compass reference.’
     • ‘This makes a great deal of sense if we consider the evolutionary origin of homing pigeons.’
     • ‘Fortunately I have the innate navigation abilities of a homing pigeon, so I headed west towards central London.’
     • ‘Trained homing pigeons can find their way over distances as far as 600 miles.’
     • ‘To send our secret reports back to Finland, we'd use homing pigeons.’
     • ‘Cell phones have been implicated in the disappearance of more than 2,000 homing pigeons during two races in Virginia and Pennsylvania.’
     • ‘He uses homing pigeons to carry messages back home.’
     • ‘Zoologists at Oxford have come up with a new theory to explain how homing pigeons navigate.’
     • ‘Like homing pigeons, some types of amphibious snakes have an unstoppable urge to return home.’
  2. 1.2(of a weapon or piece of equipment) fitted with an electronic device that enables it to find and hit a target.
     ‘a homing missile’
     More example sentences

     • ‘He didn't look to the left, he didn't look to the right, he came straight in the door and ran straight down to my brother like a homing missile.’
     • ‘It is an optically-sighted weapon, but also contains a heat-seeking homing device.’
     • ‘The Lynx adds considerably to the destroyer's firepower - it can fly at 180 knots, and has its own Sea Skua anti-ship missiles and homing torpedoes.’
     • ‘These act like James Bond-esque homing devices and, through the use of either satellite and/or land-based radio technology, can pinpoint your vehicle if it is stolen.’
     • ‘Jessie looked up from the remains of the homing device.’
     • ‘His truck had a homing device hidden under the front left wheel, and even the phones at work were tapped.’
     • ‘Carbon dioxide acts like a homing device, guiding pesky mosquitoes to their dinner.’
     • ‘However, the German response was to develop the first homing torpedoes.’
     • ‘New types of torpedoes were hurried into production, the most important being the Mark 18 electric and the homing types.’
     • ‘One principal area in the development of weapon systems is the creation of precision weapon systems using guided and homing missiles, rockets, projectiles, bombs, and other weaponry.’
     • ‘Mines can be sown in deep water, and are propelled at high speed towards a target, like a miniature homing torpedo.’
     • ‘It is armed with one homing torpedo, one torpedo rocket and twelve bombs.’
     • ‘The teams marked drop zones and set up radar homing devices to guide aircraft to there targets.’
     • ‘Further employment of the infra-red spectrum may be found in aerial combat with the infra-red homing missile.’
     • ‘This means the shell is going to combine the qualities of a controlled and homing weapon.’
     • ‘The arsenal of weapons include homing plasma guns, rockets, proximity grenades, Gattling guns and much more.’
     • ‘Bomb varieties can be anything from a simple mortar to homing missiles that purposely land on either side of your enemy (in case he attempts to dodge).’
     • ‘This aspect is more than a gimmicky distraction, as his tinkerings transform a fairly standard rocket launcher into a potent homing weapon that can track and fire upon four targets simultaneously.’
     • ‘It is also used with homing weapons and guided bombs.’
     • ‘Often, in the mid-Atlantic, after forcing U-boats to crash-dive, carrier planes dropped homing torpedoes on the submarines.’