duckling
Americannoun
noun
Etymology
Origin of duckling
First recorded in 1400–50; late Middle English; see origin at duck 1, -ling 1
Explanation
A duckling is a baby duck. Ducklings usually learn to swim by following their mother to a body of water. Ducklings, like all birds, hatch from eggs that are typically laid in a nest. Soon after all the ducklings hatch, the mother duck leads them to water, where most kinds of ducks spend the greater parts of their lives. One of literature's most famous ducklings is the one in Hans Christian Andersen's "The Ugly Duckling" — although that duckling, in the end, turned out to be a swan.
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.
Mary, on the other hand, is a clumsy bird who, in Hadlow’s telling, becomes a perfectly capable duckling swimming fiercely amid a bevy of swans.
From Salon • May 20, 2026
Edith saw herself as the ugly duckling but excelled in ballet.
From The Wall Street Journal • May 14, 2026
Clips of a duckling swimming in a bath or two happy pooches patrolling their neighbourhood are examples of the curated programming on "PetTV".
From Barron's • Apr. 3, 2026
"It is an incredibly difficult thing to go from turning that person from an ugly duckling into a swan."
From BBC • Jul. 18, 2024
It was like the makeover scenes in my American movies, where they take the dorky guy or girl, fix the hair and change the clothes, and the ugly duckling becomes the swan.
From "Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood" by Trevor Noah
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.
