Journey Through Time

By Sue

Mallard Duck

Mallard Duck - Most common duck in North America and Europe.

Oregon Ducks - Name of the football team from University of Oregon, in Eugene, Oregon

A day only a duck would love. - An expression used to indicate it is very wet outside.

And if you keep saying duck over and over again, it does seem like a very weird word. Duck, Duck, Duck..... So of course, I got curious...

The word duck comes from Old English *d?ce "diver", a derivative of the verb *d?can "to duck, bend down low as if to get under something, or dive", because of the way many species in the dabbling duck group feed by upending; compare with Dutch duiken and German tauchen "to dive".

This word replaced Old English ened/ænid "duck", possibly to avoid confusion with other Old English words, like ende "end" with similar forms. Other Germanic languages still have similar words for "duck", for example, Dutch eend "duck" and German Ente "duck". The word ened/ænid was inherited from Proto-Indo-European; compare: Latin anas "duck", Lithuanian ántis "duck", Ancient Greek n?ssa/n?tta (?????, ?????) "duck", and Sanskrit ?tí "water bird", among others.

Some people use "duck" specifically for adult females and "drake" for adult males, for the species described here; others use "hen" and "drake", respectively.
A duckling is a young duck in downy plumage[1] or baby duck;[2] but in the food trade young adult ducks ready for roasting are sometimes labelled "duckling".
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