Word.ws English Dictionary

byock

byock noun: a male ostrich's black and white wing feather.

Noun

byock (plural byocks)

  1. A male ostrich's black and white wing feather.
    • A noticeable feature of the sales was the quantity of fine goods, principally of white and feminas. The best white qualities and good broken brought 10 per cent. to 15 per cent. advance, while other qualities sold firmly. White and light femina were also 10 to 15 per cent. dearer, principally for...1899 September 8, “The Ostrich Feather Market”, in Democrat and Chronicle, 67th year, Rochester, N.Y., page 15, column 5
    • 3.—Wing-Quills or Remiges; Whites and Feminas.—The wing-quills are the largest feathers in the wing, and are arranged in a single row. They include the “Whites” in the cock, and the “Feminas” in the hen, as well as the “Byocks” or “Fancies” in the cock.1909, Agricultural Journal of the Cape of Good Hope, page 514

Examples of byock in a sentence

  • Dark femina and byocks were 10 per cent. higher.1899 September 8, “The Ostrich Feather Market”, in Democrat and Chronicle, 67th year, Rochester, N.Y., page 15, column 5:
  • These are whites, blacks, feminas, byocks, spadonas, boos, drabs and floss.1909 August 12, “Ostrich Feathers of Tripoli”, in Neenah Daily Times, volume 53, number 8,451, Neenah, Wis.; Menasha, Wis., column 5:

Forms of byock

pluralbyocks

Origin of byock

Unknown; the Italian bajocco (“brown”) entered English in the 16th century as byock or baiock (“a small Italian copper coin”), but any relationship with this word seems unlikely.

Questions about byock

What does byock mean?
Byock means a male ostrich's black and white wing feather.
How do you use byock in a sentence?
Dark femina and byocks were 10 per cent. higher.
What part of speech is byock?
Byock is a noun.
What is the plural of byock?
The plural of byock is byocks.

Words near byock in the dictionary

  1. Bynums
  2. byo
  3. BYOB
  4. byobu
  5. BYOC
  6. byock
  7. byocks
  8. BYOD
  9. BYOE
  10. BYOIP
  11. BYOK

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: byock (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “byock.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/byock. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.