Introduction
Duck is the common name for a number of species
in the Anatidae family of birds. The ducks are divided
between several subfamilies listed in full in the
Anatidae article. Ducks are mostly aquatic birds,
mostly smaller than their relatives the swans and
geese, and may be found in both fresh water and
sea water.
Ducks are sometimes confused with several types
of unrelated water birds with similar forms, such
as loons or divers, grebes, gallinules, and coots.
Terminology
The word duck (from Anglo-Saxon dūce), meaning the
bird, came from the verb "to duck" (from Anglo-Saxon
supposed *dūcan) meaning "to bend down low as if
to get under something" or "to dive", because of
the way many species in the dabbling duck group
feed by upending (compare Dutch duiken, German tauchen
= "to dive").
This happened because the older Anglo-Saxon
words ened (= "duck") and ende (= "end") came to
be pronounced the same: other Germanic languages
still have similar words for "duck" and "end": for
example, Dutch eend = "duck", eind = "end", German
ente = "duck", ende = "end"; this similarity goes
back to Indo-European: compare Latin anas (stem
anat-) = "duck", Lithuanian antis = "duck", Ancient
Greek νησσα, νηττα (nēssa, nētta) = "duck"; Sanskrit
anta = "end".
Some people use "duck" specifically for adult
females and "drake" for adult males, for the
species described here; others use "hen" and
"drake", respectively. A duckling is a young
duck in downy plumage or baby duck.
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