wildfowl

English

Etymology

From wild +‎ fowl.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈwaɪldfaʊl/

Noun

wildfowl (plural wildfowls or wildfowl)

1. Any wild bird such as ducks, geese or swans.
   • 1785, William Cowper, The Task: A Poem in Six Books‎^[1], London: J. Johnson, Book 4, p. 168:

     […] Whoso seeks an audit here
     Propitious, pays his tribute, game or fish,
     Wildfowl or ven’son, and his errand speeds.

   • 1980, J. M. Coetzee, chapter 3, in Waiting for the Barbarians, London: Secker & Wartburg, page 81:

     In these early days of the journey we eat well. We have brought salted meat, flour, beans, dried fruit, and there are wildfowl to shoot.

2. Waterfowl.

Translations

wild bird

• Bulgarian: пернат дивеч m (pernat diveč)
• Dutch: wild gevogelte
• Georgian: გარეული ფრინველი (gareuli prinveli)
• German: Wildvogel m, Wildgeflügel (de) n (as food)

waterfowl

• Finnish: vesilintu (fi)
• German: Wasservogel (de) m
• Ukrainian: водоплавні птахи m pl (vodoplavni ptaxy)

Verb

wildfowl (third-person singular simple present wildfowls, present participle wildfowling, simple past and past participle wildfowled)

1. To hunt wildfowl.
   • 2005, Plato, translated by Lesley Brown, Sophist, page 220b:

     The hunting of the kind of winged creatures, taken as a whole, is called wildfowling.

Derived terms

• wildfowler
• wildfowling

Translations

to hunt a wildfowl