duck

Reading level: hard

Estimated CEFR level: B2 — Upper-Intermediate

Estimated from word frequency; not an official CEFR classification.

Definition

  1. noun small wild or domesticated web-footed broad-billed swimming bird usually having a depressed body and short legs
  2. noun (cricket) a score of nothing by a batsman
  3. noun flesh of a duck (domestic or wild)

Etymology

From Middle English ducken, duken, douken (“to duck, plunge under water, submerge”), from Old English *dūcan (“to dip, dive, duck”), from Proto-West Germanic *dūkan, from Proto-Germanic *dūkaną (“to dip, dive, bend down, stoop, duck”). Cognates Related to Scots dulk (“to duck”), Middle Dutch ducken (“to duck”), Low German ducken (“to duck”), German ducken (“to duck”), Danish dukke, dykke (“to dive”). Related also to Scots dook, douk (“to bathe, drench, soak, baptise”), West Frisian dûke (“to plunge, dive”), Dutch duiken (“to dive, plunge, duck”), Low German duken (“to duck, dive, stoop”), German tauchen (“to dive, plunge, immerse, duck”), Swedish dyka (“to dive, submerge”).

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