Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A male duck.
- n. A mayfly used as fishing bait. Also called drake fly.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. The male of the duck kind; specifically, the mallard.
- n. The silver shilling of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, having a martlet, popularly called a drake, as the mint-mark. It is commonly supposed that the mark is in allusion to Sir Francis Drake, the famous admiral, but it is really the armorial cognizance of Sir Richard Martin, who was made warden of the mint in the fourteenth year of Elizabeth's reign.
- n. A large flat stone on which the duck is placed in the game of duck on drake. See duck.
- n. A. fabulous animal: same as dragon, 1.
- n. A battle-standard having the figure of a drake or dragon.
- n. A small piece of artillery. See dragon, 5.
- n. A species of fly, apparently the dragon-fly, used as a bait in angling. Also called drakefly
- n. A Middle English form of drawk.
- n. Any one of several pseudo-neuropterous insects used as bait by fishermen, especially certain May-flies. Ephemera danica and E. vulgata are known to English fishermen as the green drake and the gray drake.
- n. A man-of-war of the Vikings.
Wiktionary
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. The male of the duck kind.
- n. The drake fly.
- n. obsolete A dragon.
- n. obsolete A small piece of artillery.
- n. Prov. Eng. Wild oats, brome grass, or darnel grass; -- called also
drawk ,dravick , anddrank .
WordNet 3.0
- n. English explorer and admiral who was the first Englishman to circumnavigate the globe and who helped to defeat the Spanish Armada (1540-1596)
- n. adult male of a wild or domestic duck
Etymologies
- From Middle English drake ("dragon; Satan"), Old English draca ("dragon, sea monster, huge serpent"), from Proto-Germanic *drakô (“dragon”), from Latin dracō ("dragon"), from Ancient Greek δράκων (drakon, "serpent, giant seafish"), from δρακεῖν (drakein), aorist active infinitive of δέρκομαι (derkomai, "I see clearly"), from Proto-Indo-European *derk-. Compare Middle Dutch drake and German Drache (Wiktionary)
- Middle English.Middle English, dragon, from Old English draca, from West Germanic *drako, from Latin dracō; see dragon. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Chris Brown cries BET Awards 2010 Michael Jackson MJ beat it man in the mirror diddy lady gaga drake kanye on stage at 2010 BET Awards to Michael Jackson man in the mirror dancing tribute prince performance awards * Chris * Brown* cries* BET* Awards* 2010* michael* whos* bad * beyonce * jay * drake* kayne* west * taylor* swift* miley* cyrus * jonas * brothers* justin * beiber * usher* timberlake”
WN.com - Articles related to Chris Brown performs Jackson tribute at BET Awards
“On the Wing With its long tail extension, or pin, the drake is rarely mistaken for another bird, but "sprigtails" can be confused with wigeon.”
“It may be that their movements are the results of mere fussiness, but more likely they are prompted by a desire to display their satin-like breast-feathers, for every drake is something of a dandy.”
“The drake will be the heaviest one, with a belly parallel to the ground.”
“The drake is a very handsome bird, a large portion of his plumage being white; the hen is smaller, and brown in colour.”
“My drake is a native of these parts; he's not of my race; but I am not proud on that account.”
“My drake is a native of these parts, he's not of my race; but for all that I'm not proud!”
“Sometimes it was termed a _drajón_, the English equivalent of which may be the drake, meaning "dragon"; but perhaps its most popular name in the early days was _cerbatana_, from Cerebus, the fierce three-headed dog of mythology.”
Artillery Through the Ages A Short Illustrated History of Cannon, Emphasizing Types Used in America
“But failing them, you may do well with a drake which is ribbed through the whole length with red hackle over a straw-coloured body.”
“The Price sisters, with their verbal inventiveness, thought I’d formed it cleverly from the knowledge that a drake was a kind of duck.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘drake’.
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Duck!
If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, or quacks like a duck, then you should probably list it here.
duck, Duck, turducken, duckling, duck tape, Mallard, rubber duckie, Daffy Duck, Donald Duck, lame duck, ducky, ducks and 95 more...
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birds
birds with singular names from
at least 9 English dictionariesaasvogel, aberdevine, accentor, accipiter, aepyornis, agami, albatross, alcatras, alcid, alcidine, amadavat, amokura and 1056 more...
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Rakes
rake, rakes, brakes, hale, as thin as a rake, rakehell, horserake, star-wheel rake, hand-rake, rake helly, A child sitting i..., sulky rake and 47 more...
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Animals (besides pottos)
.
robin, wagtail, frog, bunny, pronk, rabbit, fur, badger, mouse, bee, crepuscular, purr and 140 more...
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A List of Mythical Proportions
All of these things exist, I swear!
unicorn, pegasus, cyclops, yeti, abominable snowman, bigfoot, phoenix, thunderbird, sea serpent, ogre, grue, troll and 138 more...
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Discovered Scrabble Words
Oh, that little smiling teacher tile in my Scrabble app. He teaches me so much.
lovage, khaf, tititi, leet, ketol, fon, ono, dunelike, braw, bocci, lutz, fano and 132 more...
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If-Christ-Had-Not-Died-For-Thee-Thou-...
Words that have been used as baby names, including virtue names, nature names, place names, etc.
The title is an actual name given to a Puritan boy in the 17th century.faith, hope, grace, charity, chastity, prudence, patience, temperance, river, phoenix, stone, violet and 455 more...
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The O.U.P. Junior Dictionary Death Row
Another news story about words being removed from a dictionary before their time. See also the list of words added to the dictionary.
carol, cracker, holly, ivy, mistletoe, dwarf, elf, goblin, abbey, aisle, altar, bishop and 137 more...
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wordsmithing part deux
because wordsmith is not a verb.
enmity, incarnate, chignon, nape, solitude, nocturne, decorum, warren, svelte, interstice, serene, charlotte and 488 more...
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fbharjo's Words
jumelle, kef, kenspeckle, lautitious, essentic, pilpulistic, impavid, cicurant, clou, chrysostomic, miasma, teleology and 1625 more...
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Chromonyms
These chromonyms are defined as colors in at least one dictionary (mostly MW3). (Actually there's one fake, for reasons I'll explain someday.) They are all one-word nouns such as "kelly", which can...
absinthe, acacia, acorn, alabaster, alesan, almond, aloma, amaranth, amber, amethyst, anemone, anil and 821 more...
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"A List of His MAJESTY's Ships and Ve...
Boston: Re-Printed and Sold at J. Draper's Printing-Office in Newbury-Street. (Price Sixteen Pence single.)
See the companion list, A LIST of the Men of War the French have left," 174...apollo, deptford, portsmouth, princess royal, scarborough, sutherland, william and mary, mary, fubbs, dublin, charlotte, catherine and 302 more...
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gorgonglare's list
the best
zeppelin, ion, laconic, serendipity, cataract, saturnine, syzygy, cinnabar, bistro, lithium, paroxysm, scion and 694 more...
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Critters
cockle, cicada, appaloosa, brachiopod, bivalve, aye-aye, cygnet, alewife, chamois, ermine, drake, dugong and 381 more...
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Fabulous Creatures
Inspired by a Twitter exchange between Kory Stamper and other lexicographers about mythical beings with "fabulous" in their definitions.
mamuque, hippocampus, hippodame, hippogriff, kraken, cockatrice, griffin, centaur, chichevache, hippocentaur, hircocerf, tragelaphus and 40 more...
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Just ducky
bufflehead, merganser, canvasback, muscovy, smew, pochard, shoveler, goosander, teal, seaduck, sheldrake, mallard and 66 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for drake.
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