peacock
pronunciation
How to pronounce peacock in British English:
UK [ˈpiːkɒk]
How to pronounce peacock in American English:
US [ˈpiːkɑːk]
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- Noun:
- European butterfly having reddish-brown wings each marked with a purple eyespot
- male peafowl; having a crested head and very large fanlike tail marked with iridescent eyes or spots
Word Origin
- peacock
- peacock: [14] The original English name of the ‘peacock’ in the Anglo-Saxon period was pēa. This was borrowed from Latin pāvō, a word which appears to have been related to Greek taós ‘peacock’, and which also gave French paon, Italian pavone, and Spanish pavo ‘peacock’. The Old English word is presumed to have survived into Middle English, as *pe, although no record of it survives, and in the 14th century it was formed into the compounds peacock and peahen to distinguish the sexes. The non-sex-specific peafowl is a 19th-century coinage.
- peacock (n.)
- c. 1300, poucock, from Middle English po "peacock" + coc (see cock (n.)). Po is from Old English pawa "peafowl" (cock or hen), from Latin pavo (genitive pavonis), which, with Greek taos said to be ultimately from Tamil tokei (but perhaps is imitative; Latin represented the peacock's sound as paupulo). The Latin word also is the source of Old High German pfawo, German Pfau, Dutch pauw, Old Church Slavonic pavu. Used as the type of a vainglorious person from late 14c. Its flesh superstitiously was believed to be incorruptible (even St. Augustine credits this). "When he sees his feet, he screams wildly, thinking that they are not in keeping with the rest of his body." [Epiphanus]
Antonym
Example
- 1. The most famous example is the tail of the peacock .
- 2. In the case of the peacock , the tail works precisely because it cannot be faked .
- 3. The film 's most beautiful scene involves the snowfall and the peacock feathers .
- 4. Charles darwin once said that contemplating a peacock 's tail made him sick , such was the difficulty of explaining its complexity .
- 5. Just as a peacock can survive and thrive despite its tail , so a woman could survive despite a suppressed immune system .