Peacock

How to spell peacock

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce peacock

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does peacock mean?

1. nounA large male bird known for its long, brightly coloured tail that it can fan into a fan-shaped display.
2. verbTo display oneself in a showy, vain manner in order to attract attention.

Peacock in a sentence

• noun

  A peacock strutted across the lawn of the country estate.

• verb

  He tends to peacock around the office whenever he closes a big deal.

• noun

  The zoo keeper explained that only the male peacock has the long, colourful tail.

• verb

  Some people peacock on social media by posting only their finest moments.

Where does peacock come from?

Language of origin: Latin

Peacock is a compound that has been hiding its origins inside an everyday word. The first element, 'pea', has nothing to do with the vegetable; it comes from the Old English 'pea' (sometimes 'pawa'), the native name for the peafowl, which English had borrowed long before from the Latin 'pavo', meaning the peacock bird. To this the speakers of Middle English added 'cock', the ordinary word for a male fowl, in order to specify the male of the species, producing 'pecok' by the 1300s. The female naturally became the 'peahen', and the species as a whole the 'peafowl', once people realised that the bare 'pea' was no longer transparent. The bird's famous fanned tail gave rise to the verb sense of showing off, and that vivid display is a handy reminder that the word ends in the plain spelling 'cock', not a fancier ending.

How the word is built

• pea- (from Old English pea: peafowl, ultimately from Latin pavo)
• cock (male bird)