fowl

From Middle English foul, foghel, fowel, fowele, from Old English fugol (“bird”), from Proto-West Germanic *fugl, from Proto-Germanic *fuglaz, dissimilated variant of *fluglaz (compare Old English flugol ‘fleeing’, Mercian fluglas heofun ‘birds of the air’),^[1] from *fleuganą (“to fly”). Cognate with West Frisian fûgel, Low German Vagel, Dutch vogel, German Vogel, Swedish fågel, Danish and Norwegian fugl. Doublet of voël. More at fly.

• enPR: foul, IPA^(key): /faʊl/

• Audio (US):

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• Homophone: foul
• Rhymes: -aʊl
• Rhymes: -aʊəl

fowl (plural fowl or fowls)

1. A bird hunted or kept for food, grouped into landfowl (order Galliformes), also called gamefowl, and waterfowl (order Anseriformes: ducks, geese, swans, etc.), which together form the clade Galloanserae.
2. (archaic) Any bird.
   • 1485, Sir Thomas Malory, chapter XIX, in Le Morte Darthur, book XIII:

     And now I take vpon me the aduentures of holy thynges / & now I see and vnderstande that myn old synne hyndereth me and shameth me / so that I had no power to stere nor speke whan the holy blood appiered afore me / So thus he sorowed til hit was day / & herd the fowles synge / thenne somwhat he was comforted

     And now I take upon myself the adventures of holy things / And now I see and understand that my old sin hinders me and shames me / so that I had no power to steer nor speak when the holy blood appeared afore me / So thus he sorrowed till it was day / and heard the fowls sing / then somewhat he was comforted

• Krio: fɔl
• Sranan Tongo: fowru

fowl (third-person singular simple present fowls, present participle fowling, simple past and past participle fowled)

1. To hunt fowl.

   We took our guns and went fowling.

• fowler
• fowling

fowl (comparative fowler, superlative fowlest)

1. (obsolete) foul
   • Paradise Lost, John Milton

     Say first, for Heav'n hides nothing from thy view / Nor the deep Tract of Hell, say first what cause / Mov'd our Grand Parents in that happy State / Favour'd of Heav'n so highly, to fall off / From their Creator, and transgress his Will / For one restraint, Lords of the World besides? / Who first seduc'd them to that fowl revolt?

• “fowl”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “fowl”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.

• Wolf, flow, wolf

fowl

1. alternative form of fowel

   And smale fowles maken melodye
   That slepen all the night with open ye - Chaucer, General Prologue, Canterbury Tales, ll.9-10