fowl
Americannoun
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the domestic or barnyard hen or rooster; chicken.
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any of several other, usually gallinaceous, birds that are barnyard, domesticated, or wild, as the duck, turkey, or pheasant.
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(in market and household use) a full-grown domestic fowl for food purposes, as distinguished from a chicken or young fowl.
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the flesh or meat of a domestic fowl.
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any bird (used chiefly in combination).
waterfowl; wildfowl.
verb (used without object)
noun
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See domestic fowl
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any other bird, esp any gallinaceous bird, that is used as food or hunted as game See also waterfowl wildfowl
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the flesh or meat of fowl, esp of chicken
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an archaic word for any bird
verb
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of fowl
First recorded before 900; Middle English foul, fuhel, Old English fugol, fugel; cognate with Old Saxon fugal, Gothic fugls, Old High German fogal ( German Vogel ), from Germanic fuglaz, a possible dissimilation of unattested fluglaz, from the same root as fly 2 ( def. )
Explanation
The noun fowl usually means domesticated birds kept for eating or producing eggs. If your friend brings you eggs from the chickens she keeps in her back yard, you can say that she has pet fowl. Fowl comes from the Old English fugel, "bird," meant simply that — "bird." Today, fowl usually refers specifically to chickens or other kinds of domesticated birds that lay eggs or are raised to be eaten. Occasionally, fowl is used interchangeably with poultry, to mean the flesh of that same kind of bird when it's eaten; you could describe your family as being fond of pork, beef, and fowl.
Vocabulary lists containing fowl
Aquatic, Waddle, and Plumage: Penguin Parlance
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Wringer
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Lauren Patel starred in the BAFTA-winning Vengeance Most Fowl and will travel with cast and creators to the ceremony in Hollywood after the film was nominated for an Academy Award.
From BBC • Feb. 27, 2025
He highlighted one particular reference in Vengeance Most Fowl: the TV presenter in the film is called Anton Deck, a reference to Geordie duo Ant & Dec.
From BBC • Feb. 16, 2025
Aardman's latest Wallace and Gromit film, Vengeance Most Fowl, won best animation - perhaps surprisingly, it's the first time they have won this award.
From BBC • Feb. 16, 2025
More than 21 million people have now watched the villainous penguin's return in Aardman's Vengeance Most Fowl, which delighted audiences young and old when the animated film premiered on BBC One on Christmas Day.
From BBC • Jan. 26, 2025
“That was the easy part. Fowl Manor. On a two-hundred-acre estate on the outskirts of Dublin. Fowl Manor is only about twenty klicks from our current location.”
From "Artemis Fowl" by Eoin Colfer
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
