A flamingo is a tall water bird, famous for pink feathers, very long thin legs, and a long neck that bends like an S. It stands in shallow water and eats with its beak upside down, which looks strange the first time you see it. The pink comes from the food it eats; a flamingo that does not get that food can look much paler. The name came into English from Portuguese and Spanish (and those from Catalan). Those same words can also mean Flemish — a person from Flanders — and Spanish flamenco is also the dance. Some people say the bird was named because its colour made them think of ruddy Flemish faces or hair; a well-known scholar backs that story, but the last step is still argued over, so treat it as probably, not as a fact you must learn. In English, flamingo is almost only the bird.