Owl
noun, verb, slang ·Common ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 Any of various birds of prey of the order Strigiformes, families Strigidae and Tytonidae, that are primarily nocturnal and have forward-looking, binocular vision, limited eye movement, and good hearing.
"A group of owls is called a parliament."
- 2 Initialism of Older Women's League. abbreviation, alt-of, initialism
- 3 A player or fan of Sheffield Wednesday Football Club. slang
- 4 nocturnal bird of prey with hawk-like beak and claws and large head with front-facing eyes wordnet
- 5 A person seen as having owl-like characteristics, especially appearing wise or serious, or being nocturnally active. broadly
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- 6 Initialism of Web Ontology Language (The order of the letters is discussed at Web Ontology Language § Acronym.) abbreviation, alt-of, initialism
- 7 An owl pigeon.
- 8 A politician with moderate views that are neither hawkish nor dovish. uncommon
- 9 Any of various nymphalid butterflies, especially in the genus Caligo, having large eyespots on the wings.
- 1 To smuggle contraband goods. archaic, intransitive
Example
More examples"An owl sleeps by day and hunts by night."
Etymology
From Middle English oule, owle, from Old English ūle, from Proto-West Germanic *uwwilā, from Proto-Germanic *uwwalǭ (compare West Frisian ûle, Dutch uil, Danish and Norwegian ugle, German Eule), diminutive of *uwwǭ (“eagle-owl”) (compare German Uhu), of imitative origin or a variant of *ūfaz, *ūfǭ (compare Old English ūf or hūf, Swedish uv (“horned owl”), Bavarian Auf), from Proto-Indo-European *up- (compare Latvian ũpis (“eagle-owl”), Czech úpět (“to wail, howl”), Avestan 𐬎𐬟𐬌𐬌𐬈𐬌𐬨𐬌 (ufiieimi, “to call out”). A Germanic variant *uwwilǭ was the source of Old High German ūwila (German Eule).
Named from the Owlerton stadium where they used to play.