Pigeon

How to spell pigeon

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce pigeon

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does pigeon mean?

1. nounA plump grey bird with a small head, common in towns and cities.
2. nounInformal term for a person who is easily cheated or taken advantage of.

Pigeon in a sentence

• A pigeon landed on the windowsill and pecked at the crumbs.

• The con artist treated the elderly investor as an easy pigeon.

• The square was crowded with tourists feeding every pigeon in sight.

• The card sharps spotted a wealthy tourist and marked him as their next pigeon.

Where does pigeon come from?

Language of origin: French

The word travels back to the Late Latin pipio, meaning a young chirping or peeping bird, which was formed from the verb pipire, 'to chirp' or 'to peep', an imitation of the thin sound a nestling makes. This became pijon in Old French, where it referred to a young dove, and English borrowed it in the late 1300s. For a long time the native English word for the bird was 'dove', and 'pigeon' originally singled out the young bird before it broadened to cover the familiar grey city bird we know today. The same imitative root lies behind the musical term 'pipe' and the idea of a 'pip' of sound, all echoing that small high note. The spelling trap is the soft ending: it is spelled with no extra 'd' (not 'pidgeon'), even though it sounds like one, and the '-geon' carries the /jən/ sound just as in 'dungeon' and 'surgeon'.

How the word is built

• pige- (from Late Latin pipio, a chirping bird)
• -on (from the French diminutive ending)