peacock

Pluralpeacocks

Formspeacocks, peacocking, peacocked

1. 1
   nouncountable

   Any peafowl, male or female, in either of the genera Pavo and Afropavo.

   The zookeeper explained that their female peacock had stopped laying eggs that spring.

   Wild peacocks of both sexes roost in tall trees at night to avoid predators.

   Similarpeafowl

   Note

   Everyday speech lets the male's name cover the whole bird, so a "female peacock" passes in ordinary use despite the cock built into the word. Where sex matters, as in a zoo, a breeding pen or a field guide, peafowl is the neutral term and peahen is the female's own name. The looser sense stretches across both genera, Pavo and Afropavo.

2. 2
   nouncountable

   A male peafowl, especially of the species Pavo cristatus, famous for its brilliant, iridescent, eye-spotted tail.

   A peacock fanned its shimmering train as the peahen wandered past, apparently unimpressed.

   The estate kept a single peacock, whose harsh dawn cries carried across the whole valley.

   Note

   The name is built like a farmyard pair. Middle English pecok joins pea, the old word for the bird itself, with cock, the male. That is why peahen and peachick sit beside it, and why, strictly, only the male carries the name. Alexander Dow's 1769 Tales translated from the Persian of Inatulla calls it the "star-trained peacock", reading the eyes of its tail as stars.

3. 3
   verbintransitive

   To walk with a proud, self-important air; to strut about haughtily.

   Fresh off his promotion, he peacocked through the office as if he owned the building.

   Politicians peacock for the cameras whenever a microphone appears.

   Similarstrut, swagger, parade, prance

   Note

   A noun turned verb: the bird's display becomes a way of walking. The verb is intransitive, so it takes no object and leans on a preposition to say where: peacock about, around, through the office. It appears in Will Butler's piece in The New York Times Magazine in 2014, so it belongs to current prose. Its forms are regular: peacocks, peacocking, peacocked.

4. 4
   nouncountable

   A pompous or vainglorious person.

   The senator was a strutting peacock who treated every hearing as his personal stage.

   Critics dismissed the director as a peacock more interested in applause than in craft.

   Similarshow-off, egotist, poser

   Note

   Calling a vain person after the bird is an old habit that reaches back to the fourteenth century. The image is the male's display, spread out for an audience. Turkeycock is its homelier partner, another strutting barnyard male. Peacock keeps the suggestion of finery: the vanity of someone who wants above all to be looked at, rather than simply to be obeyed.

5. 5
   verbintransitive

   To dress or behave ostentatiously in order to impress women.

   He spent an hour choosing an outfit, ready to peacock at the rooftop bar.

   Half the men at the festival were peacocking in sequined hats and fur coats.

   Similarpreen, pose

   Note

   Here the verb narrows to courtship, and the gerund peacocking names the practice itself: loud clothes, eye-catching accessories, behavior designed to draw women's attention. It differs from the plain strutting verb in purpose. Strutting advertises pride, while peacocking is a pitch. The metaphor fits the bird closely, since the showy tail belongs to the male.

6. 6
   nouncountable

   Any of various Asian swallowtail butterflies of the genus Papilio.

   A peacock drifted across the forest clearing, its iridescent hindwings flashing blue.

   Nineteenth-century collectors prized peacocks netted in the foothills of the Himalayas.

   Note

   An entomologist's borrowing of the bird's name. These butterflies are swallowtails, papilionid butterflies of the genus Papilio, and peacock is a common name shared by several Asian species rather than the name of one. Like most common names it is a loose label. When precision matters, the Latin species name is the real identifier, and peacock only signals the showiness the butterflies share with the bird.

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