owl
/aʊ(ə)l/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.87 in modern English
6
Scrabble Score
3
Letters
1
Syllables
3
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
Any of various birds of prey of the order Strigiformes, families Strigidae and Tytonidae, that are primarily nocturnal and have forward-looking, binocular vision, limited eye movement, and good hearing.
noun
A person seen as having owl-like characteristics, especially appearing wise or serious, or being nocturnally active.
noun
An owl pigeon.
noun
Any of various nymphalid butterflies, especially in the genus Caligo, having large eyespots on the wings.
noun
Initialism of Older Women's League.
noun
Initialism of Web Ontology Language (The order of the letters is discussed at Web Ontology Language § Acronym.)
Example Sentences
- "A group of owls is called a parliament."
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Germanic *uwwô Proto-Germanic *-ulǭ Proto-Germanic *uwwulǭ Proto-West Germanic *uwwulā Old English ūle Middle English oule English owl From Middle English howle, oul, oule, owle, owlle, from Old English ūle, from Proto-West Germanic *uwwulā, from Proto-Germanic *uwwulǭ (“owl”), diminutive of *uwwǭ (“eagle-owl”), of imitative origin or a variant of *ūfaz, *ūfǭ, from Proto-Indo-European *up- (“to cry out”). Cognates Cognate with Scots oul (“owl”), Saterland Frisian Ule (“owl”), West Frisian ûle (“owl”), Cimbrian aul (“owl”), Dutch uil (“owl”), German Eule (“owl”), Low German Uul (“owl”), Luxembourgish Eil (“owl”), Vilamovian aojł (“own”), Yiddish אײַל (ayl, “owl”), Danish and Norwegian Bokmål ugle (“owl”), Faroese ugla (“owl”), Icelandic uggla, ugla (“owl”), Norwegian Nynorsk ugla, ule (“owl”), Swedish uggla, uv (“owl”); also Bulgarian вопъл (vopăl, “cry, howl, scream”), въпия (văpija, “to weep, yell”), Czech úpět (“to howl, wail”), Russian вопи́ть (vopítʹ, “to howl, scream, yell”), вопия́ть (vopijátʹ, “to appeal; to scream, yell; to lament, wail”), вопль (voplʹ, “cry, scream, wail”), Serbo-Croatian ва̀пити, vàpiti (“to cry out; to scream”), Slovene vpíti (“to scream, yell”).