waterfowln.
/ˈwɔːtəfaʊl/, U.S. /ˈwɔdərˌfaʊl/, /ˈwɑdərˌfaʊl/ A bird which is typically found in or near water; (in later use often) spec. any of the larger kinds of swimming birds, esp. those regarded as game. Now chiefly: ducks, geese, and swans considered as a class. Cf. wildfowl n. a.
ΘΚΠ
the world > animals > birds > defined by habitat > [noun] > aquatic or swimming bird
waterfowla1382
swimmer1399
waterbird1440
naff1553
mudsucker1678
a1382 Bible (Wycliffite, E.V.) (Bodl. 959) (1961) Lev. xi. 17 Þe vnclene water foul, þat wiþ his bile puttynge water in to hi[s] ars purgeþ hymself.
a1398 J. Trevisa tr. Bartholomaeus Anglicus De Proprietatibus Rerum (BL Add. 27944) (1975) I. v. xxix. 226 Watir foules hauen bytwene here toon and clawis as it were a skyn.
c1430 (c1380) G. Chaucer Parl. Fowls (Cambr. Gg.4.27) (1871) 327 And watyr foul sat loueste in the dale.
a1450 (c1435) J. Lydgate Life SS. Edmund & Fremund (Harl.) l. 162 in C. Horstmann Altengl. Legenden (1881) 2nd Ser. 399 Al watir foul and foul upon the lond.
1538 T. Elyot Dict. Querquedula, a waterfowle callyd a teale.
1594 C. Marlowe & T. Nashe Dido iv. v. 1382 Where thou shalt see..White Swannes, and many louely water fowles.
1610 P. Holland tr. W. Camden Brit. i. 499 Great store of young water foule.
?1795 W. A. Osbaldiston Univ. Sportsman 541/1 (heading) Of Water-Fowl Shooting.
1798 S. T. Coleridge Parl. Oscillators 29 You know that water-fowl that cries, Quack! Quack!?
1843 F. Marryat Narr. Trav. M. Violet III. xiii. 261 The water-fowls are plentiful, such as swans, geese, ducks.
1870 W. C. Bryant tr. Homer Iliad I. ii. 564 As when water-fowl of many tribes—Geese, cranes and long-necked swans—disport themselves.
1884 W. B. Barrows in Auk July 278 Noisy, quarrelsome, always alert and suspicious, it [sc. the Cayenne lapwing] is the bane of all water-fowl shooting in the marshes.
1939 E. D. Laborde tr. E. de Martonne Shorter Physical Geogr. (rev. ed.) xx. 304 In the musk-rat and the beaver the hind feet are webbed like those of the water-fowl.
1967 Canad. Geogr. Jrnl. July 5/3 To the physiographer this is ‘knob and kettle’ country; to the waterfowl biologist, ‘pothole country’.
2012 Hoosier Times (Bloomington, Indiana) 16 Dec. (Herald-Times ed.) e5/4 You could witness spectacular dawn fly-outs of waterfowl.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, September 2015; most recently modified version published online December 2021).
<
n.a1382