Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Either of two freshwater dabbling ducks, Anas americana of the Americas or A. penelope primarily of Eurasia and Africa, having a grayish or brownish back and a white belly and wing coverts.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun See widgeon.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Zoöl.), rare A widgeon.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Any of three freshwater dabbling ducks.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun freshwater duck of Eurasia and northern Africa related to mallards and teals

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Origin unknown.]

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word wigeon.

Examples

  • The wigeon is a beautiful duck that originated in Europe and Asia.

    dispatch.com: RSS 2009

  • Northern pintail, shoveler, green-winged teal and mallard are most numerous, but a discerning eye will spot many types of ducks such as wigeon, cinnamon teal, gadwall and varieties of divers like canvasback, ring-necked and ruddy ducks.

    unknown title 2009

  • As usual the noisiest birds were the drake wigeon with their musical double whistle, which is very penetrating.

    Country diary: Cromarty Firth 2011

  • Photographer Anthony Gibson was lucky enough to capture an attempt by this lynx to grab an American wigeon in Alaska's Denali National Park.

    Lynx Stalks an American Wigeon 2009

  • From below and almost through the middle of these lapwings blasts a denser flock of wigeon with even greater urgency.

    Country diary: Claxton, Norfolk 2011

  • Knot spun away in a grey miniature cloud, wigeon split up into small groups while the redshanks did not seem to know what to do.

    Country diary: Cromarty Firth 2011

  • "One wigeon nearby had its head underwater and was completely clueless the whole time."

    Lynx Stalks an American Wigeon 2009

  • In the larger channels and pools wigeon are dabbling.

    Country diary: Holme Dunes, Norfolk 2011

  • More wigeon, and a few flocks of teal fly in, descending on to the dark water before clambering out on to the muddy ground.

    Country diary: West Sussex 2011

  • The main birds were oystercatchers, knot and wigeon.

    Country diary: Cromarty Firth 2011

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • received this in the title to a delightful spam e-mail message, used as a decoy word I presume. It said "Future? wigeon, coot"

    February 19, 2010

  • Well, they're absolutely right. The future is wigeon,coot after all. ;-)

    February 22, 2010