Other forms: hawks
A hawk is a sharp-eyed bird of prey that hunts by day. A hawk overhead, hawk-eyed, watch like a hawk.
Its eyesight resolves detail several times better than a human's, which is where watch like a hawk comes from. Hawks have short broad wings for twisting through trees, unlike the long-winged falcons. In politics a hawk favours force and a dove favours talks. Note that the word is Old English.
1nounhawkA sharp-eyed bird of prey that hunts by day.
“A hawk circled high above the field, looking for mice.”
2nounfavoursSomebody who favours force in politics.
“The hawks in the government wanted to send troops, but the president chose talks.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
hawk is a bird, or a political type.
Old English hafoc is a Germanic word, perhaps from a root meaning to seize. Its ultimate origin is disputed.
Middle English
hauk
English, today
hawk
Built from
From Middle English hauk. Middle English hauk,hauke,hawke,havek, from Old English hafoc, from Proto-West Germanic habuk, from Proto-Germanic habukaz, controversially derived from Proto-Indo-European kopuǵos, perhaps ultimately derived from kap- (“seize”). Cognate with West Frisian hauk, German Low German Haavke, Dutch havik, German Habicht, Swedish hök, Danish høg, Norwegian Bokmål hauk, Norwegian Nynorsk hauk, Faroese heykur, Icelandic haukur, Finnish haukka, Estonian haugas; also Latin capys, capus (“bird of prey”), Albanian gabonjë, shkabë (“eagle”), Russian ко́бец (“falcon”), Polish kobuz (“Eurasian Hobby”)).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA