hawk

English
A hawk

Pronunciation
  • (UK) enPR: hôk, IPA(key): /hɔːk/
  • (US) enPR: hôk, IPA(key): /hɔk/
  • (cot–caught merger) enPR: häk, IPA(key): /hɑk/
  • Audio (US)(file)
  • Rhymes: -ɔːk
  • Homophone: hock (accents with cot-caught merger)

Etymology 1

From Middle English hauk, hauke, hawke, havek, from Old English hafoc (“hawk”), from Proto-West Germanic *habuk, from Proto-Germanic *habukaz, controversially derived from a Proto-Indo-European *kopuǵos, perhaps ultimately derived from *keh₂p- (“seize”).

See also West Frisian hauk, German Low German Haavke, Dutch havik, German Habicht, Swedish hök, Danish høg, Norwegian Bokmål hauk, Norwegian Nynorsk hauk, Faroese heykur, Icelandic haukur, Finnish haukka, Estonian haugas; also Latin capys, capus (“bird of prey”), Albanian gabonjë, shkabë (“eagle”), Russian ко́бец (kóbec, “falcon”), Polish kobuz (“Eurasian Hobby”)).

Noun

hawk (plural hawks)

  1. A diurnal predatory bird of the family Accipitridae, smaller than an eagle.
    It is illegal to hunt hawks or other raptors in many parts of the world.
    • c. 1503–1512, John Skelton, Ware the Hauke; republished in John Scattergood, editor, John Skelton: The Complete English Poems, 1983, →OCLC, page 63, lines 47–48:
      He made his hawke to fly,
      With hogeous showte and cry.
  2. Any diurnal predatory terrestrial bird of similar size and appearance to the accipitrid hawks, such as a falcon.
  3. (entomology) Any of various species of dragonfly of the genera Apocordulia and Austrocordulia, endemic to Australia.
  4. (politics) An advocate of aggressive political positions and actions. [from 1962]
    Synonyms: warmonger, war hawk
    Antonym: dove
    • 1990, Peter Hopkirk, The Great Game, Folio Society, published 2010, page 106:
      A hawk by nature, Ellenborough strongly favoured presenting St Petersburg with an ultimatum warning that any further incursions into Persia would be regarded as a hostile act.
    • 2012 October 11 [1962], Michael Dobbs, quoting McGeorge Bundy, “The original hawks and doves”, in Foreign Policy‎:
      “Everybody knows who were the hawks and who were the doves,” Bundy told the ExComm on the morning of October 28, after Khrushchev announced that he was withdrawing his missiles. “Today was the day of the doves.”
    • 2019, “The World in 2020”, in The Economist:
      President Donald Trump has spent years playing the role of a China hawk.
  5. (game theory) An uncooperative or purely-selfish participant in an exchange or game, especially when untrusting, acquisitive or treacherous. Refers specifically to the Prisoner's Dilemma, alias the Hawk-Dove game.
    Antonym: dove
Hyponyms
Derived terms
Descendants
  • Sranan Tongo: aka
Translations
The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

Verb

hawk (third-person singular simple present hawks, present participle hawking, simple past and past participle hawked)

  1. (transitive) To hunt with a hawk.
    • c. 1503–1512, John Skelton, Ware the Hauke; republished in John Scattergood, editor, John Skelton: The Complete English Poems, 1983, →OCLC, page 62, lines 9–10:
      To hawke, or els to hunt
      From the auter to the funt
    • 2003, Brenda Joyce, House of Dreams, page 175:
      He rode astride while hawking; she falconed in the ladylike position of sidesaddle.
  2. (intransitive) To make an attack while on the wing; to soar and strike like a hawk.
    to hawk at flies
Derived terms
Translations

Etymology 2

Uncertain; perhaps from Middle English hache (“battle-axe”), or from a variant use of the above.

Noun

hawk (plural hawks)

  1. A plasterer's tool, made of a flat surface with a handle below, used to hold an amount of plaster prior to application to the wall or ceiling being worked on: a mortarboard.
    Synonym: mortarboard
Derived terms
Translations

Etymology 3

Back-formation from hawker.

Verb

hawk (third-person singular simple present hawks, present participle hawking, simple past and past participle hawked)

  1. (transitive) To sell; to offer for sale by outcry in the street; to carry (merchandise) about from place to place for sale; to peddle.
    The vendors were hawking their wares from little tables lining either side of the market square.
    • 1713, Jonathan Swift, Imitation of Horace, Book I. Ep. VII:
      His works were hawked in every street.
Derived terms
Translations

Etymology 4

Onomatopoeic.

Noun

hawk (plural hawks)

  1. A noisy effort to force up phlegm from the throat.
Synonyms
Translations

Verb

hawk (third-person singular simple present hawks, present participle hawking, simple past and past participle hawked)

  1. (transitive, intransitive) To expectorate, to cough up something from one's throat.
  2. (transitive, intransitive) To try to cough up something from one's throat; to clear the throat loudly.
    Grandpa sat on the front porch, hawking and wheezing, as he packed his pipe with cheap tobacco.
Derived terms
Translations

See also

Further reading

Manx

Noun

hawk

  1. Lenited form of shawk.
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