different between buzzard vs fowl

English

Etymology

From Middle English bosart, from Anglo-Norman buisart, from Old French buison, buson (French buse), possibly from Latin bute?.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?b?z??d/

Noun

buzzard (plural buzzards)

1. Any of several Old World birds of prey of the genus Buteo with broad wings and a broad tail.
2. (Canada, US) Any scavenging bird such as the American black vulture (Coragyps atratus) or the turkey vulture (Cathartes aura).
3. (colloquial, derogatory, slang, often preceded by "old", the "old buzzard") In North America, a curmudgeonly or cantankerous man; an old person; a mean, greedy person.
4. (archaic) A blockhead; a dunce.
   • 1640, George Herbert, Jacula Prudentum; or, Outlandish Proverbs, Sentences, etc., in The Remains of that Sweet Singer of the Temple George Herbert, London: Pickering, 1841, p. 142,^[1]

     An old man’s shadow is better than a young buzzard’s sword.

   • 1774, Oliver Goldsmith, Animated Nature, Volume 6, Index,^[2]

     It is common, to a proverb, to call one who can not be taught, or who continues obstinately ignorant, a buzzard.

5. (golf) Synonym of double bogey

Synonyms

• buteo
• broadwing
• turkey vulture
• vulture

Derived terms

Translations

Further reading

• buzzard on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

English

Etymology 1

From Middle English foul, foghel, fowel, fowele, from Old English fugol (“bird”), from Proto-Germanic *fuglaz, dissimilated variant of *fluglaz (compare Old English flugol ‘fleeing’, Mercian fluglas heofun ‘birds of the air’), from *fleugan? (“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.

Pronunciation

• enPR: foul, IPA^(key): /fa?l/
• Homophone: foul
• Rhymes: -a?l
• Rhymes: -a??l

Noun

fowl (plural fowl or fowls)

1. (archaic) A bird.
2. A bird of the order Galliformes, including chickens, turkeys, pheasant, partridges and quail.
3. Birds which are hunted or kept for food, including Galliformes and also waterfowl of the order Anseriformes such as ducks, geese and swans.

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

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.

Derived terms

• fowler
• fowling

Translations

References

Etymology 2

Adjective

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?

References

• fowl at OneLook Dictionary Search
• fowl in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

Anagrams

• Wolf, flow, wolf

Middle English

Noun

fowl (plural fowles)

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