falcon

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English faucon, borrowed from Old French faucon or falcun, the oblique case of fauc,^[2][3][4][5] from Late Latin falcō (“falcon”).^[2][6][7][8] The Late Latin word is of uncertain origin.^[4][9] It is commonly taken from falx (“sickle, pruning hook”), the bird being named for its hooked talons;^{[2][5][6][10]} Etymonline adds that the name may refer to its beak or to its spread wings,^[6] and Weekley preferred the sword-like wings.^[11] Others take the Latin word from Germanic, comparing Old High German falcho, German Falke and Dutch valk and the personal name Falco among the Lombards, Visigoths and Franks;^{[8][12][3][13]} Etymonline reports a proposed meaning "grey bird", from the root of pale and fallow.^[6][7] Barnhart and Etymonline object that falconry came from the East, so the Germanic peoples are likely to have taken the word from the Romans rather than the reverse.^[5][6] The spelling with -l- was refashioned after Latin in the 15th century.^[2][9][14]

Earliest recorded meaning

A diurnal bird of prey used in falconry: about 1250, spelled faucun, in The Owl and the Nightingale,^[2][5] the mid-13th century in Etymonline.^[6] Anglo-Norman faucon is recorded from 1121–35.^[15] The Oxford Dictionary of English notes that the word first named any bird of prey used in falconry.^[9]

Semantic evolution

Merriam-Webster's Book of Word Histories traces the word to the Norman Conquest, after which French became the language of falconry in England; in the sport the name falcon was originally given only to the female, the smaller male being the tiercel.^[16][8][17] Johnson (1755) defined it as a hawk trained for sport.^[18] From 1496 the word also named a light cannon,^[2][17] and in 1525 also a representation of the bird, as in heraldry.^[2][15] In ornithology it came to mean any member of the genus Falco, with long pointed wings,^[2][8] named by species from 1525.^[2] According to Cresswell, the -l- long stayed silent in some speakers' pronunciation.^[14]

Timeline

• c. 1250 – faucun, a bird of prey used in falconry.^[2][5]
• 15th century – the spelling with -l-.^[2]
• 1496 – a light cannon.^[2]
• 1525 – a representation of a falcon.^[2]
• 1807 – the verb, to hunt with falcons.^[2]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. A bird of prey of the genus Falco, with long pointed wings and a hooked beak, such as the peregrine.
2. Such a bird, especially a female, trained to hunt in falconry.
3. (historical) A light cannon used from the 15th to the 17th century.

Word family

• falconoid
• falconer
• falconry
• falconet

Related words

• falcon-gentle
• tiercel
• gyrfalcon
• hawk
• falcate

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
6. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
8. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
9. ^ a b c Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
11. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
12. ^ Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
13. ^ Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
14. ^ a b Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
15. ^ a b Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
16. ^ Merriam-Webster's Book of Word Histories, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
17. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
18. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.