mallard









mallard


noun, plural mal·lards, (especially collectively) mal·lard.

  1. a common, almost cosmopolitan, wild duck, Anas platyrhynchos, from which the domestic ducks are descended.

noun plural -lard or -lards

  1. a duck, Anas platyrhynchos, common over most of the N hemisphere, the male of which has a dark green head and reddish-brown breast: the ancestor of all domestic breeds of duck

n.c.1300, “wild drake or duck,” from Old French malart (12c.) or Medieval Latin mallardus, apparently from male, from Latin masculus (see male), in which case the original sense probably was not of a specific species but of any male wild duck, though the specific sense of “male of the wild duck” was not attested in English until early 14c.

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