Etymologically
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falcon

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Pronunciation

  • /ˈfɔː(l)kən/, /ˈfɒlkən/[1]

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
  • 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.