Skip to main content
Glite Dictionary
🐥 A young duck 🍗 Duck meat
duckling

duckling

1 3.2
Meat from a young duck served as food
  • noun
  • /ˈdʌklɪŋ/
translation icon : pato joven
  • At the dinner party, the main course was a succulent duckling accompanied by a fresh orange salad.
  • roasted duckling

Examples

  • For a special occasion, we enjoyed a perfectly seasoned duckling served with savory mashed potatoes.

  • The chef recommended the roasted duckling with a sweet cherry glaze as the highlight of the menu.

  • How about a little Long Island duckling?

    Missing (1982)

  • The farmer killed the duckling.

    Academic text (2006)

  • Now, "The Disturbing Duckling" is a privately owned piece of art, the name on record is some company called Bon Global.

    Money Plane (2020)

  • Now Asgar Jorn, the "Disturbing Duckling."

    Money Plane (2020)

  • But despite the preprandial drinks and a fine dinner (duckling with cherry sauce), it was a lugubrious evening.

    Fiction book (1992)

  • Nyx broke into an elaborate crust, finding duckling flavored with orange and rosemary.

    Fiction book (1993)

Synonyms

duck
vsduckling
138 1.0

Meat from the water bird often eaten as food

is meat from a young domestic bird rather than any age
poultry
vsduckling
11 1.6

Meat from birds like chickens, ducks and turkeys used for food

is specific young domestic bird meat rather than a broader category
fowl
vsduckling
6 3.2

Meat from birds like chicken or duck used for food

is meat from a young domestically raised bird rather than wild birds

Compounds

ugly duckling
3 4.2

Someone or something that seems not attractive at first but later becomes admired

lucky duckling
  • Informal
8.2

A person who has good things happen to them

Surface Forms

duckling singular
ducklings plural

Morphology

duckling = duck (transparent) = duck + ling

The word denotes the young animal (or its meat); deriving a culinary sense from 'young duck' is straightforward for learners.

Etymology

Duckling also has the same parts, duck + -ling, where -ling means 'young' or 'small', as in sapling. That's why in cooking a duckling can mean the tender meat of a young, small duck.