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hoot owl

hoot owl

1 6.6
A bird with a deep, low call heard at night
  • noun
  • /huːt aʊl/
translation icon : búho
  • A hoot owl answered, way back in the trees.

Examples

  • It was just an old hoot owl.

  • As night fell, the familiar sound of the hoot owl echoed through the forest.

  • A hoot owl lived in the woods, just yards away.

    Fiction book (2000)
  • Teachers, moms, and hoot owls sleep with one eye open.

    Blog text (11)
  • That's just some old hoot owl hooting.

  • Does a hog roost, does a hoot owl hoot?

  • While camping, we often heard the eerie calls of the hoot owl in the distance.

  • The hoot owl perched silently on the branch, waiting for its next meal.

Surface Forms

hoot owl singular
hoot owls plural

Morphology

hoot + owl

The meaning 'an owl known for making hooting sounds' is directly and transparently derived from combining 'hoot' (the owl's call) with 'owl' (the bird). This noun–noun compounding follows a common, cross-linguistic compositional pattern, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents would readily infer the MWE's meaning.

Etymology

Hoot owl comes from a simple sound image: the parts hoot and owl name an owl that makes a deep, rolling 'hoot' instead of a sharp 'screech'. So a hoot owl is an owl known for its hooting call.