owl

owl

See also: OWL and Owl

Translingual

Etymology

Abbreviation of English Old Welsh.

Symbol

owl

  1. (international standards) ISO 639-3 language code for Old Welsh.

See also

  • Wiktionary’s coverage of Old Welsh terms

English

Etymology

From Middle English howle, oul, oule, owle, owlle, from Old English ūle, from Proto-West Germanic *uwwilā, from Proto-Germanic *uwwalǭ (“owl”), diminutive of *uwwǭ (“eagle-owl”), of imitative origin or a variant of *ūfaz, *ūfǭ, from Proto-Indo-European *up- (“to cry out”).

Cognates

Cognate with Scots oul (“owl”), Saterland Frisian Ule (“owl”), West Frisian ûle (“owl”), Cimbrian aul (“owl”), Dutch uil (“owl”), German Eule (“owl”), Low German Uul (“owl”), Luxembourgish Eil (“owl”), Vilamovian aojł (“own”), Yiddish אײַל (ayl, “owl”), Danish and Norwegian Bokmål ugle (“owl”), Faroese ugla (“owl”), Icelandic uggla, ugla (“owl”), Norwegian Nynorsk ugla, ule (“owl”), Swedish uggla, uv (“owl”); also Bulgarian вопъл (vopǎl, “cry, howl, scream”), въпия (vǎpija, “to weep, yell”), Czech úpět (“to howl, wail”)[1][2], Russian вопи́ть (vopítʹ, “to howl, scream, yell”), вопия́ть (vopijátʹ, “to appeal; to scream, yell; to lament, wail”), вопль (voplʹ, “cry, scream, wail”), Serbo-Croatian ва̀пити, vàpiti (“to cry out; to scream”), Slovene vpíti (“to scream, yell”).

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /aʊ(ə)l/
  • Audio (US):(file)
  • Rhymes: -aʊl, -aʊəl

Noun

owl (plural owls)

  2. Any of various birds of prey of the order Strigiformes, families Strigidae and Tytonidae, that are primarily nocturnal and have forward-looking, binocular vision, limited eye movement, and good hearing. [from 8th c.]
    • 2019 June 6, “A gaggle, a confusion and a conspiracy - bizarre animal collective group names”, in BBC‎[1]:
      A group of owls is called a parliament.
  3. (by extension) A person seen as having owl-like characteristics, especially appearing wise or serious, or being nocturnally active. [from 14th c.]
    Antonym: lark
  4. An owl pigeon. [from 18th c.]
  5. (politics, uncommon) A politician with moderate views that are neither hawkish nor dovish.
  6. Any of various nymphalid butterflies, especially in the genus Caligo, having large eyespots on the wings.

Coordinate terms

birds

Derived terms

Translations

See also

References

  1. ^ Derksen, Rick (2008), “*vъpiti”, in Etymological Dictionary of the Slavic Inherited Lexicon (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 4), Leiden; Boston: Brill, →ISBN, page 532
  2. ^ Vladimir Orel, A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, s.vv. “*uwwalōn”, “*uwwǭ”, “*ūfaz ~ *ūfǭ” (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 436.

Further reading

Verb

    owl (third-person singular simple present owls, present participle owling, simple past and past participle owled)

    1. (archaic, intransitive) To smuggle contraband goods.

    Anagrams

    This article is issued from Wiktionary. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.