stylistic:style_transfer, quality:corruption, information:filtering
Etymology

The word duck comes from Old English dūce 'diver', a derivative of the verb * dūcan 'to duck, bend down low as if to get under something, or dive', because of the way many species in the dabbling duck group feed by upending; compare with Dutch duiken and German tauchen 'to dive'.

This word replaced Old English ened / ænid 'duck', possibly to avoid confusion with other words, such as ende 'end' with similar forms. Other Germanic languages still have similar words for duck, for example, Dutch eend, German Ente and Norwegian and. The word ened / ænid was inherited from Proto-Indo-European; cf. Latin anas "duck", Lithuanian ántis 'duck', Ancient Greek νῆσσα / νῆττα (nēssa / nētta) 'duck', and Sanskrit ātí 'water bird', among others.

A duckling is a young duck in downy plumage or baby duck, but in the food trade a young domestic duck which has just reached adult size and bulk and its meat is still fully tender, is sometimes labelled as a duckling.

A male is called a drake and the female is called a duck, or in ornithology a hen.