Etymology
1. "to plunge into" (trans.), c.1300; to suddenly go under water (intrans.), c.1340, from presumed O.E.
*ducan "to duck," found only in derivative
duce (n.) "duck" (but there are cognate words in other Gmc. languages, cf. Ger.
tauchen "to dive"), from P.Gmc.
*dukjan. Sense of "bend, stoop quickly" is first recorded in Eng. 1530.
2. Etymology tree
3. Proto-Germanic *dūkaną
4. Proto-West Germanic *dūkan
5. Old English *dūcan
6. Middle English ducken
7. English duck
8. From Middle English ducken, duken, douken (“to duck, plunge under water, submerge”), from Old English *dūcan (“to dip, dive, duck”), from Proto-West Germanic *dūkan, from Proto-Germanic *dūkaną (“to dip, dive, bend down, stoop, duck”).
9. Cognates
10. Related to Scots dulk (“to duck”), Middle Dutch ducken (“to duck”), Low German ducken (“to duck”), German ducken (“to duck”), Danish dukke, dykke (“to dive”). Related also to Scots dook, douk (“to bathe, drench, soak, baptise”), West Frisian dûke (“to plunge, dive”), Dutch duiken (“to dive, plunge, duck”), Low German duken (“to duck, dive, stoop”), German tauchen (“to dive, plunge, immerse, duck”), Swedish dyka (“to dive, submerge”). See: Proto-Germanic '
*dūkaną', Low Saxon 'ducken', German, old spelling '
ducken', Danish '
dukke', Scots '
dook', Dutch '
duiken', Low Saxon 'duken', German, old spelling '
tauchen', Swedish '
dyka'.
Verbs referencing "duck"
Dutch
duiken, German, old spelling
tauchen, Swedish
ducka, Scots
dook, German, old spelling
ducken, Luxembourgish
dauchen, Danish
dukke, Norwegian, nynorsk
dukka, Welsh
twco.