quail: Quail the bird [14] and quail ‘cower’ [15] are not related. The former comes via Old French quaille from medieval Latin coacula, which probably originated in imitation of the bird’s grating cry. It is not known for certain where the verb (which originally meant ‘decline, wither, give way’) came from, although some have linked it with another verb quail, now obsolete, which meant ‘curdle’. This came via Old French quailler from Latin coāgulāre, source of English coagulate. => coagulate
quail (n.)
migratory game bird, late 14c. (early 14c. as a surname (Quayle), from Old French quaille (Modern French caille), perhaps via Medieval Latin quaccula (source also of Proven?al calha, Italian quaglia, Old Spanish coalla), or directly from a Germanic source (compare Dutch kwakkel, Old High German quahtala "quail," German Wachtel, Old English wihtel), imitative of the bird's cry. Or the English word might be directly from Proto-Germanic. Slang meaning "young attractive woman" first recorded 1859.
quail (v.)
c. 1400, "have a morbid craving;" early 15c., "grow feeble or sick;" mid-15c., "to fade, fail, give way," of unknown origin, perhaps from Middle Dutch quelen "to suffer, be ill," from Proto-Germanic *kwaljan, from PIE *gwele- (1) "to throw, to pierce" (see quell). Or from obsolete quail "to curdle" (late 14c.), from Old French coailler, from Latin coagulare (see coagulate). Sense of "lose heart, shrink, cower" is attested from 1550s. According to OED, common 1520-1650, then rare until 19c., when apparently it was revived by Scott. Related: Quailed; quailing.
雙語例句
1. They dined off salmon, quail, and fruit.
他們正餐吃的是鮭魚、鵪鶉肉和水果。
來自柯林斯例句
2. I've shot hundreds of quail with that gun.
我用那只槍打死過幾百只鵪鶉。
來自柯林斯例句
3. The very words make many of us quail.
這些話讓我們許多人膽怯了。
來自辭典例句
4. What they did to a sensitive stomach made seasoned sailors quail.
這種局面使習(xí)慣航海的水兵都感到胃口不舒服.
來自辭典例句
5. The quail were walking around like pullets, seeming all dainty and unseen.