quack
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[edit] English
[edit] Pronunciation
[edit] Etymology 1
From Middle English *quacken, queken (“to croak like a frog; make a noise like a duck, goose, or quail”), from quack, qwacke, quek, queke (“quack”, interjection and noun), also kek, keke, whec-, partly of imitative origin and partly from Middle Dutch quacken (“to croak, quack”), from Old Dutch *kwaken (“to croak, quack”), from Proto-Germanic *kwakanan, *kwakōnan (“to croak”), of imitative origin.[1] Cognate with Eastern Frisian kwaakje (“to quack, croak”), Middle Low German quaken (“to quack, croak”), German quaken (“to quack, croak”), Danish kvække (“to croak”), Swedish kväka (“to croak, quackle”), Norwegian kvekke (“to croak”), Icelandic kvaka (“to twitter, chirp”).
[edit] Noun
quack (plural quacks)
- The sound made by a duck.
- Did you hear that duck make a quack?
[edit] Translations
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[edit] Verb
quack (third-person singular simple present quacks, present participle quacking, simple past and past participle quacked)
- To make a noise like a duck.
- The more breadcrumbs I threw on the ground, the more they quacked.
- Do you hear the ducks quack?
[edit] Derived terms
[edit] Translations
[edit] References
- ^ Robert E. Lewis, Middle English dictionary, Volume 8, queke.
[edit] Etymology 2
c 1630, shortening of quacksalver, from Middle Dutch kwaksalver (“hawker of salve”) (Dutch kwakzalver), from quacken (“to brag, boast; to croak”)
[edit] Noun
quack (plural quacks)
- A fraudulent healer or incompetent doctor of medicine, an impostor who claims to have qualifications to practice medicine.
- That doctor is nothing but a lousy quack!
- 1662: Rump: or an Exact Collection of the Choycest Poems and Songs Relating to Late Times, Vol. II, by ‘the most Eminent Wits’
- Tis hard to say, how much these Arse-wormes do urge us, We now need no Quack but these Jacks for to purge us, [...]
- 1720: William Derham, Physico-theology
- After ſome Months, the Quack gets privately to Town, [...]
- 1843, Thomas Carlyle, Past and Present, book 2, ch. 8, The Electon
- ‘if we are ourselves valets, there shall ‘exist no hero for us; we shall not know the hero when we see him;’ - we shall take the quack for a hero; and cry, audibly through all ballot-boxes and machinery whatsoever, Thou art he; be thou King over us!
- A charlatan.
- (slang) A doctor.
[edit] Synonyms
- See also Wikisaurus:deceiver
[edit] Derived terms
[edit] Translations
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[edit] Verb
quack (third-person singular simple present quacks, present participle quacking, simple past and past participle quacked)
- To practice, commit quackery.
[edit] Translations
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[edit] Adjective
quack (not comparable)
