Culfers

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Archaic birds known as wood pigeons, a larger wild dove found in woodlands and farmland across Europe
2. Old English term for the wood pigeon, a plump grey dove that nests in trees and forages in open fields
3. Obsolete word for a wild pigeon of the woods, once used in older English writing to name these birds

Etymology: Culfer is an Old English word for the wood pigeon, the plump grey bird that nests in trees and feeds in farm fields. It descends from Latin "columba," meaning dove, which Old English borrowed early, probably through the Christian Latin used in churches and monasteries. The Latin word is the source of English "column" and "colomb" in a different sense, but the bird's name took a separate path. The Old English form was "culfre," and by the Middle English period it had become "culver," a dialect and literary name that lasted for centuries alongside "wood pigeon." Shakespeare uses it, and it survived in English country speech into the modern era.

Synonyms: pigeon, dove