fowl

[foul]

See more synonyms for fowl on Thesaurus.com

noun, plural fowls, (especially collectively) fowl.

the domestic or barnyard hen or rooster; chicken.Compare domestic fowl.
any of several other, usually gallinaceous, birds that are barnyard, domesticated, or wild, as the duck, turkey, or pheasant.
(in market and household use) a full-grown domestic fowl for food purposes, as distinguished from a chicken or young fowl.

the flesh or meat of a domestic fowl.
any bird (used chiefly in combination): waterfowl; wildfowl.

verb (used without object)

to hunt or take wildfowl.

Origin of fowl

before 900; Middle English foul, Old English fugol, fugel; cognate with Old Saxon fugal, Gothic fugls, Old High German fogal (German Vogel)

Can be confusedfoul fowl

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018

Related Words for fowl

chicken, goose, pheasant, hen, turkey, game, duck, chick, cock, bird, capon, rooster

Examples from the Web for fowl

Contemporary Examples of fowl

It is a multimillion-dollar business in which roughly 15 million fowl die a year.
The History of the Chicken: How This Humble Bird Saved Humanity
William O’Connor
December 27, 2014
Like all fowl, turkeys tend to go quiet when held upside down.
Confessions of a Turkey Killer
Tom Sykes
November 26, 2014
Both include oysters, crawfish, crab, shrimp, and fish from the Gulf of Mexico, and pork, fowl, and beef.
Secrets of Creole and Cajun Food
Mary Goodbody
February 17, 2010

Historical Examples of fowl

The basket contained a fowl and some eggs which she had just bought at a great price.
The Rock of Chickamauga
Joseph A. Altsheler
Even the fowl at Horn o' the Moon are not of the ordinary sort.
Tiverton Tales
Alice Brown
Pass through a sieve and use for masking meat, fowl, fish, &c.
The Cook's Decameron: A Study in Taste:
Mrs. W. G. Waters
At times she was even able to carry off a rabbit or a fowl given her by Desiree.
Abbe Mouret's Transgression
Emile Zola
Fill the fowl with the stuffing, placing in the yolks and truffles.
The Skilful Cook
Mary Harrison

British Dictionary definitions for fowl

fowl

noun

See domestic fowl
any other bird, esp any gallinaceous bird, that is used as food or hunted as gameSee also waterfowl, wildfowl
the flesh or meat of fowl, esp of chicken
an archaic word for any bird

verb

(intr) to hunt or snare wildfowl

Word Origin for fowl

Old English fugol; related to Old Frisian fugel, Old Norse fogl, Gothic fugls, Old High German fogal

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Word Origin and History for fowl

Old English fugel "bird," representing the general Germanic word for them, from Proto-Germanic *foglaz (cf. Old Frisian fugel, Old Norse fugl, Middle Dutch voghel, Dutch vogel, German vogel, Gothic fugls), probably by dissimilation from *flug-la-, literally "flyer," from the same root as Old English fleogan, modern fly (v.1).

Originally "bird;" narrower sense of "domestic hen or rooster" (the main modern meaning) is first recorded 1570s; in U.S. also extended to ducks and geese. As a verb, Old English fuglian "to catch birds." Related: Fowled; fowling.

Idioms and Phrases with fowl

fowl

see neither fish nor fowl.