Duckling

//ˈdʌklɪŋ// noun

noun ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A young duck.
  2. 2
    young duck wordnet
  3. 3
    A young duck.; A young female duck.

    "Good night, darling; take that kiss to your respected mother, and tell her with my compliments that we can’t afford to make ducks and drakes of the romance of our little pet’s life: she will hatch those birds for herself in due time, and remain cluck-clucking, wisely, but sadly, like a perplexed old hen, when her ducklings and drakelings have unexpectedly taken the water."

  4. 4
    flesh of a young domestic duck wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
angelbabebabybaby-dollbantambanty

Example

More examples

"An ugly duckling became a graceful swan."

Etymology

From Middle English dokeling, dukling, dookelynge (“duckling”), equivalent to duck + -ling.

Related phrases

lucky ducklingugly duckling

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