Partridge

How to spell partridge

9 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce partridge

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does partridge mean?

1. nounA plump, short-tailed game bird often hunted in open farmland.

Partridge in a sentence

• The farmer spotted a partridge darting across the stubble field.

• Roast partridge was the main course at the autumn dinner.

Where does partridge come from?

Language of origin: Greek

The word traces back to the ancient Greek perdix, the name for this plump game bird, which passed into Latin as perdix. From there it travelled into Old French, where over time it took the forms perdriz and pertriz, and English borrowed it during the 1200s and 1300s as 'pertriche' or 'partrich'. The modern spelling with its tricky '-idge' ending settled later, and that ending is the real trap: the word sounds like it ends in 'ij' but is written '-idge', echoing words like 'ridge' and 'bridge'. The Greek root perdix even survives in modern scientific naming, where Perdix is still the genus of the grey partridge, a neat reminder of how old this bird's name really is.

How the word is built

• partridge (a single root, from Latin perdix; no separable prefix or suffix)