duckling

/'dʌkliɳ/

Thân thiện

A duckling swims behind its mother in a small pond.

Definition

1. Noun:
   • A young duck: A duckling is a baby or juvenile duck.
   • The meat of a young domestic duck: Duckling also refers to the flesh of a young duck used as food.

Examples

• Noun (young duck):

  • The mother duck led her line of ducklings across the pond.
  • We watched the fluffy yellow ducklings learn to swim.

• Noun (meat):

  • For dinner, we roasted a duckling with orange sauce.
  • Duckling is often considered more tender than mature duck.

Advanced Usage

• "Ugly duckling": This is a common idiom referring to someone or something that appears unattractive or unpromising at first but develops into something beautiful or successful. It originates from the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale.
  • She felt like the ugly duckling in her family of talented musicians, but later became a famous painter.

Variants and Related Words

• Duck (noun): The adult bird.
• Duckling is typically used as is; the "-ling" suffix often denotes something small or young (e.g., gosling, fledgling).

Synonyms

• Young duck: Gosling (specifically a young goose, not a duck).
• Meat: There is no direct single-word synonym; "young duck meat" is a descriptive equivalent.

Idioms Related

• Ugly duckling: As described in Advanced Usage.

Học thuật

Noun

1. young duck
2. flesh of a young domestic duck