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/pˈikˌɑk/ Listen

noun

Peacock n.

(Zool.) The male of any pheasant of the genus Pavo, of which at least two species are known, native of Southern Asia and the East Indies. Note: The upper tail coverts, which are long and capable of erection, are each marked with a black spot bordered by concentric bands of brilliant blue, green, and golden colors. The common domesticated species is Pavo cristatus. The Javan peacock (Pavo muticus) is more brilliantly colored than the common species.

In common usage, the species in general or collectively; a peafowl.

Peacock butterfly (Zool.), a handsome European butterfly (Hamadryas Io) having ocelli like those of peacock.

Peacock fish (Zool.), the European blue-striped wrasse (Labrus variegatus); so called on account of its brilliant colors. Called also cook wrasse and cook.

Peacock pheasant (Zool.), any one of several species of handsome Asiatic pheasants of the genus Polyplectron. They resemble the peacock in color.

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Etymology of 'Peacock'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Peacock" Quotes from Famous Books

... was a great Tudor house of mullioned windows, traceries, and battlements; of stately towers, moss-grown balustrades, and statues darkening with the fog that was already hiding the angles and wings of its huge bulk. A peacock spread its ostentatious tail on the broad stone steps before the portal; a flight of rooks from the leafless elms rose above its stacked and twisted chimneys. After all, how little had this stately incarnation of the vested rights and sacred tenures of the past in common with the laughing ...

— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... hell, Alton Locke, laddie—a warse ane than any fiend's kitchen or subterranean Smithfield that ye'll hear o' in the pulpits—the hell on earth o' being a flunkey, and a humbug, and a useless peacock, wasting God's gifts on your ain lusts and pleasures—and kenning it—and not being able to get oot o' it for the chains ...

— Daily Thoughts - selected from the writings of Charles Kingsley by his wife • Charles Kingsley

... the turkey company. Seeing himself and his barnyard acquaintances the center of so many eyes, Mr. Peacock was properly vain. He spread his beautiful fan-shaped tail, and would not be driven ...

— The Automobile Girls in the Berkshires - The Ghost of Lost Man's Trail • Laura Dent Crane

... colour of the robe. The long outer robe thrown over the inner garment (uchikaku) in these brilliant colours, in its tamer shades yet harmonized. Taken with the broad sash of the obi it made her rival the peacock in his grandest display. Her hair dressed high, was a bewildering harmony of the costly tortoise shell combs and pins (kanzashi) arrayed in crab-like eccentricity. The gold ornamentation glistened and sparkled amid the dark tresses. Truly Shu[u]zen was puzzled in this claim for priority between ...

— Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House) - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 2 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville

... man intoning an Ivizan romance. He hesitated from time to time as if undecided, repeating the same verses over and over until he managed to pass on to new ones, uttering at the end of each strophe, according to the custom of the country, a strange screech like a peacock, a harsh and strident trill like that which accompanies the ...

— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

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