Fowled

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. Caught or hunted birds, especially game birds, in the past tense
2. Engaged in the activity of capturing or shooting birds as an action completed before now
3. Has taken or harvested birds for food or sport, referring to a finished action

Etymology: "Fowled" is the past tense of "fowl," used as a verb meaning to hunt wild birds. The verb grows from the noun, which is older and more basic: Old English "fugol" meant simply "bird," and it came from Proto-Germanic "fuglaz," itself linked to the verb "fleuganą," meaning "to fly." So the name for birds was rooted in their flight. The noun and the verb did not always mean the same thing. In Middle English, "foul" or "fowel" referred to birds in general, including the tame ones kept around a farm, and only later did the hunting sense attach to the word. Today the everyday sense of "fowl" is mostly the domestic bird, such as the chicken or turkey on a dinner table, while "fowling" keeps the older sense of hunting or trapping wildfowl. Few English words show this flying-bird connection so directly. German "Vogel," Dutch "vogel," and Swedish "fågel" all share the same ancestor, so the English word is a close relative of the names for birds across much of northern Europe.

Synonyms: soiled, stained

Antonyms: cleaned, purified