fowl

[ foul ]

noun

, plural fowls, (especially collectively) fowl.

1. the domestic or barnyard hen or rooster; chicken ( def ). Compare domestic fowl.
2. any of several other, usually gallinaceous, birds that are barnyard, domesticated, or wild, as the duck, turkey, or pheasant.
3. (in market and household use) a full-grown domestic fowl for food purposes, as distinguished from a chicken or young fowl.
4. the flesh or meat of a domestic fowl.
5. any bird (used chiefly in combination):

   waterfowl; wildfowl.

verb (used without object)

1. to hunt or take wildfowl.

fowl

/ faʊl /

noun

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

verb

1. intr to hunt or snare wildfowl

Word History and Origins

Origin of fowl¹

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 )

Word History and Origins

Origin of fowl¹

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

Idioms and Phrases

see neither fish nor fowl .

Example Sentences

The name of the restaurant demands she offer duck and peaches, and the combination of crisp-skinned fowl and juicy fruit is simple and satisfying.

From Washington Post

Mid-Atlantic dishes, from fish to fowl, play large on the menu.

From Washington Blade

Healthy birds housed within view of fellow fowl infected with a common pathogen mounted an immune response, despite not being infected themselves, researchers report online June 9 in Biology Letters.

From Science News

She was born to be a helpmeet, to supply what the beasts of the field and the fowls of the air could not, in sorrow and pain.

From Nautilus

You’d know what time of year it is simply by the chef’s choice of meat and fowl.

From Washington Post

It is a multimillion-dollar business in which roughly 15 million fowl die a year.

From The Daily Beast

It all began, the consensus seems to be, with the red jungle fowl.

From The Daily Beast

Like all fowl, turkeys tend to go quiet when held upside down.

From The Daily Beast

They had planned dinners together every night and ate guinea fowl, duck and other “interesting” dishes.

From The Daily Beast

But it was her light dinner—typically a broth with vegetables and either chicken or guinea fowl—that Wheeler saw as key.

From The Daily Beast

He stirred the smoldering ashes till the broiled fowl began to sizzle afresh.

From Project Gutenberg

Water-fowl that had not moved at the first alarm now sprang in myriads from reeds and sedges, and darkened the very air.

From Project Gutenberg

Chloride of Lime … bad smell … bad egg … white of egg … fowl … grain … flour … flour and water … milk fluid … milk.

From Project Gutenberg

The Chinese esteem it as a great delicacy and mix it with fowl and vegetables.

From Project Gutenberg

The priests shall not eat of any thing that is dead of itself or caught by a beast, whether it be fowl or cattle.

From Project Gutenberg

Related Words

• chicken
• goose
• hen
• pheasant