sheldrake

Estimated CEFR level: C2 — Proficiency

Estimated from word frequency; not an official CEFR classification.

Definition

noun large crested fish-eating diving duck having a slender hooked bill with serrated edges
noun Old World gooselike duck slightly larger than a mallard with variegated mostly black-and-white plumage and a red bill

From Middle English sheld- (“parti-colored”) (akin to Middle Dutch shillede) + drake (“male duck”).

Herds of wild ponies dot the hills, and black duck and sheldrakes are heading their young broods on the mirror-like ponds. — Acadia: or, A Month with the Blue Noses, Frederic S. (Frederic Swartwout) Cozzens
Sheldrakes and goosanders, coots and gulls, whifflers and dippers, made the best of Sunday, and bathed and wrote their winged penmanship on the white sheet of water. — The Entailed Hat; Or, Patty Cannon's Times, George Alfred Townsend
I watched a cloud of sheldrake that wheeled and broke over their own images a few yards away to our left, and then I turned to her. — A Case in Camera, Oliver Onions

merganser, fish duck, sawbill

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