Other forms: moorhens
A moorhen is a dark water bird with a red patch on its forehead. A moorhen on the pond, moorhen chicks, the moorhen's call.
The red shield above the bill is what tells it from a coot, which has a white one. It walks on floating weed on enormous feet and swims with a nodding head.
1nounmoorhenA dark water bird with a red patch on its forehead.
“A moorhen had built its nest among the reeds at the edge of the pond.”
moorhen is a bird.
Old English morhenn is moor plus hen, from moor in the sense of a marsh.
Old English
*mōrhenn
Middle English
morhen
English, today
moorhen
Built from
From Middle English morhen, perhaps from Old English mōrhenn, an alteration of Old English worhenn (compare coordinate masculine term mōrhana, a possible corruption of worhana (“pheasant”)), equivalent to moor + hen.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA