foal
pronunciation
How to pronounce foal in British English:
UK [fəʊl]
How to pronounce foal in American English:
US [foʊl]
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- Noun:
- a young horse
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- Verb:
- give birth to a foal
Word Origin
- foal
- foal: [OE] Foal goes back to a prehistoric source meaning ‘young, offspring’, which also produced Latin puer ‘child’ and English pony, poultry, pullet, pullulate, and even pool ‘common fund’. Its main Germanic descendant was *folon, which gave German fohlen and füllen, Dutch veulen, Swedish föl, and English foal, but another derivative of the same Germanic base produced English filly [15], probably borrowed from Old Norse fylja.=> filly, pony, pool, poultry, pullet, pullulate
- foal (n.)
- Old English fola "foal, colt," from Proto-Germanic *fulon (cognates: Old Saxon folo, Middle Dutch volen, Dutch veulen, Old Norse foli, Old Frisian fola, Old High German folo, German Fohlen, Gothic fula), from PIE *pulo- "young of an animal" (cognates: Greek polos "foal," Latin pullus "a young animal," Albanian pele "mare"), suffixed form of root *pau- (1) "few, little" (see few).
- foal (v.)
- "give birth (to a foal)," late 14c., from foal (n.). Related: Foaled; foaling.
Example
- 1. I raised that horse since he was a foal .
- 2. On a colt , the foal of a donkey .
- 3. The mare has just thrown a foal in the stable .
- 4. L raised that horse since he was a foal .
- 5. Veterinarians say such a foal is rare , but not unknown .