fowl

adj

1. 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 World besides? / Who first seduc'd them to that fowl revolt?”

noun

Etymology: 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.

1. 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 comforted”

2. 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

Etymology: 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.

1. To hunt fowl.

   “We took our guns and went fowling.”