quail
1 Americannoun
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Also called true quail. any of numerous gallinaceous birds, order Galliformes, classified as either Old World quails, within the pheasant family (Phasinidae), especially the genus Coturnix, or the distantly related New World quails, comprising their own family (Odontophoridae), including the genera Colinus, Callipepla, and Odontophorus : among the most familiar true quails are the Old World king quail and the New World bobwhite.
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Older Slang. a woman or girl.
verb (used without object)
noun
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any small Old World gallinaceous game bird of the genus Coturnix and related genera, having a rounded body and small tail: family Phasianidae (pheasants)
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any of various similar and related American birds, such as the bobwhite
verb
Synonym Usage
See wince 1.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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quailsimple
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quailssimple
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have quailedperfect
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has quailedperfect
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am quailingprogressive
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are quailingprogressive
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is quailingprogressive
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have been quailingperfect progressive
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has been quailingperfect progressive
Past
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quailedsimple
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had quailedperfect
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was quailingprogressive
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were quailingprogressive
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had been quailingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of quail1
First recorded in 1350–1400; Middle English quaille, quaylle, from Old French quaille, from Medieval Latin quaccola; imitative of its call
Origin of quail2
1400–50; late Middle English < Middle Dutch quelen, queilen
Explanation
Smaller than the chicken and not as well known as the pigeon, quail is like the often-overlooked middle child of the ground-dwelling bird family. Quail can also mean to cringe in fear or pain. So if you are a quail, you might quail at the thought of quail-hunting season. Quail is a broad, catchall word; it can refer to any one of many small domestic game birds. So if you’re bragging about the quail you shot on a hunting trip to your uptight, bird-obsessed pals, they might demand to know if it was the Bobwhite quail, the Valley quail or the Scaled quail, to name just a few. If you use this word as a verb, it means to draw back in fear or pain. You might quail in fear at the sight of a playground bully. A good way to remember this verb meaning is to think of how the word chicken is also associated with fear.
Vocabulary lists containing quail
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A Vocabulary Bestiary: Animals That Behave as Verbs
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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.
See Examples For:
Ellen Dinsmoor is chief operating officer of Vow, a Sydney-based firm that sells cultivated Japanese quail products in Singapore.
From BBC ● Jun. 24, 2025
Under the ticking clock, the chefs wrestle with dishes like tournedos aux morilles and quail with cherries.
From Salon ● Dec. 25, 2024
He loved to hunt and cook, sometimes combining the two passions at the fire station by serving quail enchiladas, the poultry fresh from a recent hunt.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 24, 2024
A quail on the Mexican side called back, triggering a back-and-forth soundtrack that was both fitting and heartbreaking in an ecosystem split by an artificial barrier.
From Seattle Times ● May 18, 2024
It was a joint of smoked goat and he was soon gnawing at it—not very hungrily because he was still fairly full of quail.
From "Tiger, Tiger" by Lynne Reid Banks
Depre raises around 17,500 free-range hens and 70,000 quails in sheds with outdoor runs.
From Barron's ● Jun. 23, 2026
Here you can chase hummingbirds, roam through the never-crowded garden and “visit Stoneview’s resident quails, which have their own fenced-in compound called, ‘Quallywood,’” she says.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 6, 2026
The tinned dishes included typical Mediterranean ingredients, such as olives, tomatoes, quails and swordfish.
From Seattle Times ● May 11, 2024
Though scientists don’t fully understand these light-sensing receptors, one team identified certain brain cells in quails that could directly detect light, according to a study published in 2014 in Current Biology.
From Scientific American ● Apr. 20, 2023
We traverse fields and forests, walk through barren lands where quails and woodcocks fly up at our feet, and, after twelve miles of bushwhacking, enter the Plattekill State Forest.
From "On the Far Side of the Mountain" by Jean Craighead George
My heart quailed at the idea of sharing a roof with her again, all of us swept up in the tornado vortex of her illness.
From Slate ● Mar. 14, 2022
Naturally Helberg quailed at the thought of taking on Jimmy Stewart’s iconic role?
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 15, 2018
Some of the starkest images of the extremism that gained ground in the 1930s as democracies quailed came from German artists themselves.
From The Guardian ● Mar. 4, 2017
No, wait: She quailed at confronting the Islamic State.
From Washington Post ● Oct. 27, 2016
This young wounded figure held more force and danger than she’d ever met in a human before, and she quailed.
From "The Subtle Knife" by Philip Pullman
It wasn’t so long ago that book publishers and bookstore owners were quailing about the coming of ebooks, like movie theater owners at the dawn of the television age.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 8, 2022
He has been a quailing, simpering paragon of mediocrity.
From Washington Post ● May 10, 2021
Instead, lawmakers, quailing at the union’s opposition, decided only that civilians may be included on the boards — which, in practice, is unlikely to happen.
From Washington Post ● Aug. 10, 2016
It is Micawber, hounded by creditors but never for an instant quailing at their squalid naggings, who first protects young David Copperfield in London.
From Time Magazine Archive
But quailing at the thought of Strauss’s certain apoplexy at his withdrawal, he chose to put off the uncomfortable conversation until the last minute.
From "Big Science" by Michael Hiltzik
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.
