Other forms: peacocks
A peacock is a bird famous for opening its huge colourful tail like a fan. A peacock's tail, the peacock displayed, proud as a peacock.
Only the male has it, and it is not the tail but greatly extended covert feathers above it. The colour is structural — the feathers are brown and the blue and green come from how the surface bends light. Darwin found the tail so hard to explain that he said it made him sick to look at.
1nounpeacockA male peafowl with a large fanned display.
“The peacock opened its tail and strutted across the lawn.”
peacock is a bird.
Old English pea comes from Latin pavo, a peafowl, plus cock. Peahen and peafowl are formed the same way.
Middle English
pecok
English, today
peacock
Built from
From Middle English pecok. From Middle English pecok, pekok, pocok, pacok, first component from Old English pēa, pāwa (“peacock, peafowl”), ultimately from Latin pāvō; equivalent to pea + cock. Compare Old Norse páfugl (“peacock”) literally “peafowl”, and English peahen, peachick, etc.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA