widgeon
Americannoun
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any of several common freshwater ducks related to the mallards and teals in the genus Anas, having metallic green flight feathers, a white wing patch, and a buff or white forehead, including A. penelope of Eurasia and North Africa, A. sibilatrix of South America, and the baldpate, A. americana, of North America.
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Obsolete. a fool.
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of widgeon
First recorded in 1505–15; perhaps from an Anglo-French correspondent of French vigeon, from Vulgar Latin; compare Medieval Latin vipiō “kind of crane” (derivative of vip- imitative of a bird's cry)
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:
Also spotted, but in fewer numbers, were snow geese, buffleheads, redheads, goldeneyes, American widgeon, ruddy, ring-necked, canvasbacks, scaup and wood ducks.
From Washington Times ● Feb. 15, 2015
Geese, black ducks, mallard, teal and widgeon have darkened the skies over the bay and fattened themselves in its marshes.
From Time Magazine Archive
The bitterns boomed and the marsh harriers skimmed over the reeds and millions of widgeon and mallard and tufted ducks flew about m various wedges, looking like champagne bottles balanced on a nimbus of wings.
From "The Once and Future King" by T. H. White
The widgeon, who had slept on water, came whistling their double notes, like whistles from a Christmas cracker.
From "The Once and Future King" by T. H. White
Two or three widgeon hung in one of them, and, far away to the eastward, a fly-like man was plodding over the slob in tiny persistence, to collect his bag.
From "The Once and Future King" by T. H. White
From Susquehanna Flats to the Suisun marshes and from the Kankakee marshes to Pas a l'Outre all species of wild waterfowl had been scarce; canvasbacks, redheads, ruddy ducks, teals, gadwalls, widgeons, shovelers especially so.
From Time Magazine Archive
The blue and green-winged teal had already begun to fly; canvasbacks, mallards, widgeons, pintails, shovelers and redheads would follow soon, before and with the frost.
From Time Magazine Archive
I hed vittles consistin' o' fish, flesh, an' fowl,—sometimes a rabbit, sometimes a squir'l, with feathered game to foller, sech as partridge, teals, an' widgeons.
From Our Young Folks—Vol. I, No. II, February 1865 An Illustrated Magazine for Boys and Girls by Various
Long Gun! who oft to the forefinger of Colonel Hawker has swept the night-harbour of Poole all alive with widgeons, be true to the trust now reposed in thee by Kit North!
From Recreations of Christopher North, Volume I (of 2) by Wilson, John Lyde
The wild-ducks and widgeons are in the gorge; The personators of your ancestors rest, full of complacency.
From The Shih King From the Sacred Books of the East Volume 3 by Legge, James
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.
