fowl
/faʊl/
fowl noun: any bird.
Noun
fowl (plural fowl or fowls)
- Any bird.
- 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...1485, Sir Thomas Malory, chapter XIX, in Le Morte Darthur, book XIII
- 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.
Verb
fowl (third-person singular simple present fowls, present participle fowling, simple past and past participle fowled)
- To hunt fowl.
- We took our guns and went fowling.
- To use or traverse in pursuit of fowls.
- They hunt all grounds; and dravv all ſeas;
Foule euery brooke, and buſh; to pleaſe
Their vvanton taſts:[…]1611, Ben[jamin] Jonson, Catiline His Conspiracy, London: […] [William Stansby?] for Walter Burre, →OCLC, Act I, signature D, recto
- They hunt all grounds; and dravv all ſeas;
Adjective
fowl (comparative fowler, superlative fowlest)
- 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...
- Paradise Lost, John Milton
fowl meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Telugu and Malayalam
fowl in Tamil
- வளர்ப்புப் பறவை, பட்சி
fowl in Urdu
- چڑیا, پرندہ
fowl in Telugu
- a fowl, a bird
- కోడి kōḍi
fowl in Malayalam
- പക്ഷി, കോഴിവർഗ്ഗം, കോഴിയിറച്ചി
More languagesFewer languages
- fowl in Kannada
- ಹಕ್ಕಿ, ಪಕ್ಷಿ, ಕೋಳಿ, ಹುಂಜ
- fowl in Indonesian
- ayam
- fowl in Persian
- ماکیان mâkiyân
Examples of fowl in a sentence
- The turkeys are out of stock but we have some guinea fowl in the back.
- Typical of many phasianid birds, guinea fowl are capable runners that have strong burst-flight capacities but little endurance in flight.
- A rasp of guinea fowl honked as 'Emma' the ostrich pecked.
Synonyms of fowl
Forms of fowl
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | fowl |
| plural | fowls |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | fowls |
| present participle | fowling |
| past participle | fowled |
| past | fowled |
| Adjective | |
| comparative | fowler |
| superlative | fowlest |
Origin of 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’), from *fleuganą (“to fly”). Cognate with West Frisian fûgel, Low German Vagel, Dutch vogel, German Vogel, Swedish fågel, Danish, Icelandic, Norwegian Bokmål, and Norwegian Nynorsk fugl. Doublet of voël. More at fly.
Words formed from fowl
- antifowl
- Cochin fowl
- Dorking fowl
- fowl bluegrass
- fowl grass
- fowl meadow grass
- fowlery
- fowl-house
- fowlhouse
- fowlish
- fowlkind
- fowllike
- fowl-like
- fowl-lore
- fowl paralysis
- fowl pest
- fowlpox
- fowl-run
- fowlyard
- frizzle fowl
- gamefowl
- game fowl
- guinea-fowl
- guinea fowl
- helmeted guinea fowl
- junglefowl
- jungle fowl
- landfowl
- make fish of one and fowl of another
- mallee fowl
- moorfowl
- neither fish, flesh, nor fowl
- neither fish nor fowl
- peafowl
- Philippine fowl disease
- rockfowl
- scrubfowl
- seafowl
- Spanish fowl
- spurfowl
- waterfowl
- wildfowl
- wormfowl
- yardfowl
- fowler
- fowling
Phrases with fowl
Words that rhyme with fowl
15 more rhymesFewer rhymes
Questions about fowl
- What does fowl mean?
- Fowl means any bird.
- What is fowl in Tamil?
- Fowl in Tamil is வளர்ப்புப் பறவை, பட்சி. See Fowl meaning in Tamil.
- What part of speech is fowl?
- Fowl can be a noun, a verb or an adjective.
- How do you pronounce fowl?
- Fowl is pronounced /faʊl/.
- What is the plural of fowl?
- The plural of fowl is fowl.
Words near fowl in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: fowl (page history and authors); fowl (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); fowl (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); కోడి (Telugu) (page history and authors); fowl (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); fowl (Kannada Wiktionary) (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.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-fowl.ogg.
Cite this entry: “fowl.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/fowl. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.