What does "capercaillie" mean?

A large, black grouse of the genus Tetrao in the bird family Phasianidae, especially the western capercaillie, Tetrao urogallus.

Capercaillie

Q: What is a synonym for "capercaillie"?

Common synonyms include: capercailzie, horse of the wood, horse of wood, magpie, tetrao urogallus, western capercaillie.

//kæpɚˈkeɪli// noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1
A large, black grouse of the genus Tetrao in the bird family Phasianidae, especially the western capercaillie, Tetrao urogallus.
2
large black Old World grouse wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms

capercailzie horse of the wood horse of wood magpie tetrao urogallus western capercaillie

Etymology

Borrowed from Scots capercailzie (for the -z-, see Mackenzie and tailzie), a corruption of Scottish Gaelic capall (“horse”) + coille (“of the woods”).

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.