tiercel
/ˈtɜː(ɹ)səl/
tiercel noun: a male hawk or falcon.
Noun
tiercel (plural tiercels)
- A male hawk or falcon.
- In this wise, the glossy bright-eyed kestrel, whom tiercels’ training could not reclaim, shook off silver bells, and velvet hood, and broidered jesses; and fled away—to consort, henceforward for evermore, with gleds, and hawks, and such birds of prey as make their nests deep in Bohemian forests, or...1866, [George Alfred Lawrence], “Evasit”, in Sans Merci; or, Kestrels and Falcons, volume III, London: Tinsley Brothers, […], page 126
- He is a tiercel, lean and long and supple-winged, the first of the year.1967, J. A. Baker, The Peregrine, page 39
Synonyms of tiercel
Forms of tiercel
| plural | tiercels |
|---|---|
| alternative form | tercel |
| alternative form | terzel |
| alternative form | tassel |
| alternative form | tassell |
| alternative form | tarcel |
| alternative form | tarsel |
| alternative form | tarsell |
| alternative form | tyercel |
| alternative form | tyercle |
Origin of tiercel
From Middle English tercel, from Old French terçuel, from Late Latin tertiolus, the diminutive of Latin tertius (“third”). Sources disagree whether the connection is that the males of most species of birds of prey favoured in falconry are smaller than the females by about a third, or whether it refers to the supposition that only one egg in three yields a male.
Words formed from tiercel
Words that rhyme with tiercel
Questions about tiercel
- What does tiercel mean?
- Tiercel means a male hawk or falcon.
- What part of speech is tiercel?
- Tiercel is a noun.
- How do you pronounce tiercel?
- Tiercel is pronounced /ˈtɜː(ɹ)səl/.
- What is the plural of tiercel?
- The plural of tiercel is tiercels.
Words near tiercel in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: tiercel (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: “tiercel.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/tiercel. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.