Word.ws English Dictionary

potrack

UK/ˈpɒtɹak/US/ˈpɑtɹæk/

potrack interjection: the shrill, high-pitched noise of a guinea fowl.

Interjection

potrack

  1. (Southern US, dated, especially) The shrill, high-pitched noise of a guinea fowl.
    • Here and there cattle were grazing, guinea fowls were calling potrack in tones which not even the magic of distance could render musical[…]1898, Bradford Torrey, “Virginia”, in A World of Green Hills: Observations of Nature and Human Nature in the Blue Ridge, Houghton, Mifflin, and Company, page 186
    • My grandmother got me some guinea eggs once, to put under one of those hens. Their "potrack, potrack, potrack" had all the neighbors up in arms after a while2003 November 29, DittyDu...@webtv.net, “Thanksgiving over, now TRUTH!”, in alt.fifty-plus.friends

Verb

potrack (third-person singular simple present potracks, present participle potracking, simple past and past participle potracked)

  1. (archaic, chiefly African-American Vernacular) To make such a shrill, high-pitched noise.
    • "Dem guineas potracked en waked me up, Son," whispered Neptune. "Now I aims to git whut 's been sneakin' off wid my fowls."1920, Marie Conway Oernler, “IV: The Soul of Black Folks”, in The Purple Heights, New York: Century Co.
    • Cocks crowed, guineas potracked, calves and goats bleated. A strain of music sang out above the confusion of sounds[…]1932, Julia Mood Peterkin, chapter V, in Bright Skin: A Novel, University of Georgia Press, published 1998, →ISBN, page 43

Examples of potrack in a sentence

  • […]a few guinea hens pecking for seeds or worms and calling out their idiot incessant potrack, potrack, potrack.2019 May 20, Terrell Greene, Terry’s Run: An American Life 1923 ..., Xlibris, →ISBN:
  • Come de daybreak you hear de guinea fowls start potracking down at de edge of de woods lot, and den de roosters all start up 'round de barn and de ducks finally wake up and jine in.1941, Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves, volume 13, Washington, DC...

Forms of potrack

third-person singular presentpotracks
present participlepotracking
past participlepotracked
pastpotracked

Origin of potrack

Onomatopoeic.

Questions about potrack

What does potrack mean?
Potrack means the shrill, high-pitched noise of a guinea fowl.
How do you use potrack in a sentence?
[…]a few guinea hens pecking for seeds or worms and calling out their idiot incessant potrack, potrack, potrack.
What part of speech is potrack?
Potrack can be an interjection or a verb.
How do you pronounce potrack?
Potrack is pronounced /ˈpɒtɹak/ (UK).

Words near potrack in the dictionary

  1. potpies
  2. potplant
  3. potplants
  4. potpourri
  5. potpourris
  6. potrack
  7. potracked
  8. potracking
  9. potracks
  10. Potratz
  11. Potratzes

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: potrack (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:

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