Quawk

Part of speech: noun, verb

Definitions

1. Making or producing a harsh, croaking cry like that of a duck, crow or other bird
2. A loud, raucous call uttered by a bird, or the act of letting out such a cry
3. To emit a rough, grating sound similar to the call of a fowl or other creature

Etymology: "Quawk" is an imitative word, formed to copy the sound a bird makes rather than borrowed from another language or built from older roots. Its earliest recorded uses in English come in the 19th century, and it belongs to a family of similar sounds such as "quack" and "squawk," which share the same hard onomatopoeic shape. Because the sound itself is what gave rise to the word, there is no older meaning to recover: the sense of a harsh cry has been present from the start. The noun and verb both follow the same pattern, so the single meaning of a croaking, grating call covers the bird's cry and the act of making it. The overlap with "squawk" is the most useful thing to know, since the two words are close in sound and in use, and speakers sometimes treat them as variants of each other.