mallard
[mal-erd]
- a common, almost cosmopolitan, wild duck, Anas platyrhynchos, from which the domestic ducks are descended.
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Origin of mallard
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for mallard
Contemporary Examples
It launches with an amusing ruse: Bond makes his entrance swimming underwater, disguised by a mallard he wears as a hat.
Historical Examples
A pair of mallard ducks were swimming about in one end of it,—the cool end.
Camping with President RooseveltJohn Burroughs
I saw this illustrated one spring in the case of a mallard drake.
The Wit of a Duck and Other PapersJohn Burroughs
Then he turned appealingly to me, uttering the soft note of the mallard.
The Wit of a Duck and Other PapersJohn Burroughs
Captain Mallard and the "Return" had brought her to the town, and that was all.
A Little Girl in Old DetroitAmanda Minnie Douglas
"If we can make Barre before it storms," said Captain Mallard.
A Little Girl in Old DetroitAmanda Minnie Douglas
mallard
- a duck, Anas platyrhynchos, common over most of the N hemisphere, the male of which has a dark green head and reddish-brown breast: the ancestor of all domestic breeds of duck
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Word Origin
C14: from Old French mallart, perhaps from maslart (unattested); see male, -ard
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
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Word Origin and History for mallard
n.
c.1300, "wild drake or duck," from Old French malart (12c.) or Medieval Latin mallardus, apparently from male, from Latin masculus (see male), in which case the original sense probably was not of a specific species but of any male wild duck, though the specific sense of "male of the wild duck" was not attested in English until early 14c.
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper