fowl

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English foul, also fuwel,^[2][3][4][5] inherited from Old English fugol (“bird”), also fugel,^[6][7][8][9] from Proto-Germanic *fuglaz,^[8] the general Germanic word for a bird.^[8][10] It is cognate with Old Frisian fugel, Old Saxon fugal, Middle Dutch voghel, Dutch vogel, Old High German fogal, German Vogel, Old Norse fugl and Gothic 𐍆𐌿𐌲𐌻𐍃 (fugls).^{[7][3][8][11]} The usual explanation is that the Germanic form was dissimilated from *flug-la-, literally "flyer",^[12][11][7] from the root of *fleugan- (“to fly”) and so of the English verb fly;^[11][13][14] the OED and Orel compare the adjective flugol (“flying, fleeing”), and Hoad and Ayto present the link only as a possibility.^{[7][13][15][10]} Kroonen reconstructs Proto-Indo-European *pluk-ló-,^[11] and Etymonline, following Watkins, takes it from *pleuk-, from the root *pleu- (“to flow”).^[8] Holthausen compared Lithuanian paukštis (“bird”),^[9] but Kroonen thinks the derivation from fly more likely.^[11] The verb is foulen, from fuglian (“to catch birds”), from the noun.^{[12][5][8][7]}

Earliest recorded meaning

Any bird: in Beowulf, which Barnhart dates to about 725.^[7][3] The Old English verb, to catch birds, is in Ælfric's Grammar.^[7][8]

Semantic evolution

Fowl was the ordinary Old English word for a bird, while bird meant only a young bird or nestling; from the 14th century bird began to take over, a process that lasted many hundreds of years.^[10][16] The narrowing of fowl to a domestic cock or hen, now its main meaning, is dated to the 1570s by Etymonline, to 1580 by Barnhart and to before 1586 (Sidney's Arcadia) by the OED,^[8][3][7] and Weekley places the modern limitation at about 1600.^[17] In the United States it was extended to domestic ducks, geese and turkeys.^[8][7] Johnson (1755) caught the change in progress: colloquially the word meant edible birds, but in books all feathered creatures.^[18] The old general sense survives in the Authorized Version's fowl of the air,^[5] in dialect (Shetland and Ayrshire),^[19] and in the compounds wildfowl and waterfowl.^[10][16] For a time it was wider still: in the Wycliffite Bible and until 1648 it could mean any winged creature, including bats.^[7][14] The sense of a bird's flesh as food is recorded from 1672, and that of the flesh of the domestic bird from 1861, in Beeton's Book of Household Management.^[7] In Essex a fowl was a cock as distinct from the hens, and in Norfolk any large bird.^[19] Sailors' slang used the word for a troublesome sailor (1937),^[7] and American Black slang for a young woman (1940), as a play on chick.^[20]

Timeline

• c. 725 – fugol, any bird, in Beowulf.^[3][7]
• before 1200 – the Middle English form fuwel.^[3]
• 1340 – with a modifying word: fowl of chase, fowl of flight, fowl of game (obsolete by 1671).^[7]
• before 1382 – winged creatures in general (obsolete by 1648).^[7]
• before 1586 – a domestic cock or hen, in Sidney's Arcadia.^[7][3] Etymonline dates this sense to the 1570s.^[8]
• 1646 – winged game (obsolete by 1763).^[7][14]
• 1672 – the flesh of birds as food.^[7]
• 1861 – the flesh of the domestic fowl.^[7]
• 1937 – slang, a troublesome sailor.^[7]

Meanings

Noun

1. A domestic cock or hen; a chicken, especially an adult one: She keeps a dozen fowls behind the barn.^{[21][5][7][22]}
2. Any of several similar birds, domesticated or wild, such as the duck, turkey or guinea fowl.^[5][22][7]
3. A bird hunted as game or eaten as food; such birds collectively.^[21][22]
4. The meat of such birds, especially of chicken: a plate of boiled fowl.^[21][5][7]
5. (archaic) Any bird: fowl of the air.^[21][5][14]
6. (obsolete, 1382–1648) Winged creatures in general, including those that are not birds.^[7][14]

Verb

1. To hunt, catch or snare wildfowl, for sport or food.^[21][5][7]

Word family

• fowler
• moorfowl
• peafowl
• seafowl
• waterfowl
• wildfowl
• fowling
• game fowl

Related words

• fly
• flight
• foul

Usage notes

The plural is fowl or fowls.^[5][14][22] The set phrase fish, flesh, and fowl is now the only place where fowl means the flesh of birds in general.^[7][14] Dictionary.com lists fowl among words easily confused with foul.^[23]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
9. ^ a b Holthausen, Ferdinand (1934), Altenglisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
10. ^ a b c d Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
11. ^ a b c d e Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill
12. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
13. ^ a b Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill
14. ^ a b c d e f g Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
15. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
16. ^ a b Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
17. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
18. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
19. ^ a b Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
20. ^ Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
21. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
22. ^ a b c d Soanes, Catherine; Stevenson, Angus, eds. (2004), Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 11th ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
23. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House