hawk
A diurnal predatory bird of the family Accipitridae, smaller than an eagle.
Noun
- A diurnal predatory bird of the family Accipitridae, smaller than an eagle.
- It is illegal to hunt hawks or other raptors in many parts of the world.
- He made his hawke to fly, With hogeous showte and cry. - c. 1503–1512, John Skelton, Ware the Hauke; republished in John Scattergood, editor, John Skelton: The Complete English Poems, 1983, →OCLC, page 63, lines 47–48:
- Any diurnal predatory terrestrial bird of similar size and appearance to the accipitrid hawks, such as a falcon.
- Any of various species of dragonfly of the genera Apocordulia and Austrocordulia, endemic to Australia.
- An advocate of aggressive political positions and actions.
- A hawk by nature, Ellenborough strongly favoured presenting St Petersburg with an ultimatum warning that any further incursions into Persia would be regarded as a hostile act. - 1990, Peter Hopkirk, The Great Game,...
- “Everybody knows who were the hawks and who were the doves,” Bundy told the ExComm on the morning of October 28, after Khrushchev announced that he was withdrawing his missiles. “Today was the day of the doves.” - 2012...
- President Donald Trump has spent years playing the role of a China hawk. - 2019, “The World in 2020”, in The Economist:
Antonyms: dove
- An uncooperative or purely selfish participant in an exchange or game, especially when untrusting, acquisitive or treacherous. Refers specifically to the prisoner's dilemma, a.k.a. the Hawk-Dove game.
Antonyms: dove
- Cold, sharp or biting wind.
- […] take-out sandwich from Arnie's on Jackson, then a brisk walk to Michigan Avenue in the face of the "Hawk," blowing newspapers and skirts and the gulls wheeling over the Michigan Avenue Bridge in front of […] - 2000...
- […] a hand-fired coal furnace that required little attention and kept the cottage coy in spite of "the hawk" blowing icy blasts outside. So in spite of Thumper's continuing discomfort we enjoyed a fairly merry...
- I wanna learn by Ruby's birthday party." Pride turned up his collar against the hawk blowing from the river." - 2007 December 1, Gay G. Gunn, Pride and Joi, Kensington Books, →ISBN, page 47:
Origin
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *kap-der.? Proto-Germanic *habukaz Proto-West Germanic *habuk Old English hafoc Middle English hauk English hawk From Middle English hauk, hauke, hawke, havek, from Old English hafoc, from Proto-West Germanic *habuk, from Proto-Germanic *habukaz, controversially derived from Proto-Indo-European *kopuǵos, perhaps ultimately derived from *kap- (“seize”). Cognate with West Frisian hauk, German Low German Haavke, Dutch havik, German Habicht, Swedish hök, Danish høg, Norwegian Bokmål hauk, Norwegian Nynorsk hauk, Faroese heykur, Icelandic haukur, Finnish haukka, Estonian haugas; also Latin capys, capus (“bird of prey”), Albanian gabonjë, shkabë (“eagle”), Russian ко́бец (kóbec, “falcon”), Polish kobuz (“Eurasian Hobby”)).
Forms
Hyponyms
African harrier hawk aspere-hawk ball hawk bat hawk bay-winged hawk bee hawk bicoloured hawk bird hawk black hawk blue hawk broad-winged hawk brown hawk bush hawk buteo hawk buzzard hawk carrion hawk cherry hawk chicken hawk chicken-hawk chickenhawk cliff hawk common black hawk Cooper's hawk crane hawk
Related
Derived
African harrier-hawk ballhawk Berigora hawk between hawk and buzzard blue hen-hawk blue marsh hawk budget hawk changeable hawk-eagle chickenhawk cicada hawk climate hawk common hawk-cuckoo crested hawk-eagle cuckoo-hawk dorhawk duck-hawk duskhawk eaglehawk eagle-hawk fishhawk fish-hawk flyhawk grasshawk green marsh hawk
Noun Entry 2
- A plasterer's tool, made of a flat surface with a handle below, used to hold an amount of plaster prior to application to the wall or ceiling being worked on: a mortarboard.
Synonyms: mortarboard
Origin
Uncertain; perhaps from Middle English hache (“battle-axe”), or from a variant use of the above, for this compare with Russian со́кол (sókol, “falcon, but also a hawk (plaster's tool), mortarboard”).
Forms
Derived
Noun Entry 3
- A noisy effort to force up phlegm from the throat.
Synonyms: hawking
Origin
Probably imitative, like hock (“cough”), hack (“cough”), although see the latter entry for more.
Forms
Verb Entry 4
- To hunt with a hawk.
- To hawke, or els to hunt From the auter to the funt - c. 1503–1512, John Skelton, Ware the Hauke; republished in John Scattergood, editor, John Skelton: The Complete English Poems, 1983, →OCLC, page 62, lines 9–10:
- He rode astride while hawking; she falconed in the ladylike position of sidesaddle. - 2003, Brenda Joyce, House of Dreams, page 175:
- To make an attack while on the wing; to soar and strike like a hawk.
- to hawk at flies
- A falcon, towering in her pride of place, / Was by a mousing owl hawked at and killed. - c. 1606 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Macbeth”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, &...
- But whether upward to the moon they go, Or dream the winter out in caves below, Or hawk at flies elsewhere - 1687, [John Dryden], “(please specify the page number)”, in The Hind and the Panther. A Poem, in Three Parts,...
Forms
Derived
Verb Entry 5
- To expectorate, to cough up (something, such as mucus) from one's throat; to produce (something) by coughing or clearing one's throat.
- to hawk a loogie
- [I]s a trobled with the cough a the Lunges ſtill? does he hawke anights ſtill? - c. 1603 (date written), Iohn Marston, The Malcontent, London: […] V[alentine] S[immes] for William Aspley, […], published 1604, →OCLC, Act...
- He hawked up, with incredible straining, the interjection ah! - 1751, [Tobias] Smollett, chapter 117, in The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle […], volume (please specify |volume=I to IV), London: Harrison and Co., […],...
- To try to cough up something from one's throat; to clear the throat loudly; to cough heavily, especially causing uvular frication.
- Grandpa sat on the front porch, hawking and wheezing, as he packed his pipe with cheap tobacco.
Forms
Related
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Verb Entry 6
- To sell; to offer for sale by outcry in the street; to carry (merchandise) about from place to place for sale; to peddle.
- The vendors were hawking their wares from little tables lining either side of the market square.
- His works were hawked in every street. - 1713, Jonathan Swift, Imitation of Horace, Book I. Ep. VII:
Origin
Back-formation from hawker.