Sure, we have all heard of a peacock, but did you know that
there are peahens, as well? A cock, of course, is a rooster or male chicken, and a hen is a female chicken.
Cock and hen are also applied to the names of other domestic birds to distinguish between sexes.
In the case of the peacock, the name for the male of the species has come to refer, now, to males and females
of the species. The term peahen is not used very much today; nor is the modern term peafowl.
The word peacock actually derives from Old English péa
“peacock”, and the –cock (or –hen) was added during the Middle English period in order
to distinguish between males and females, as mentioned above. The Old English form comes from Latin pavo
“peacock”. The peacock was a native of India, but it was domesticated and then taken to the
West by traders. The Romans probably took it to Britain, where their name for the bird was adopted and
changed by the Anglo-Saxons. The Latin word is thought to come from Greek taos “peacock”.
There have been many different forms of the word
in English: pecok, pekok, pecokk, peacocke, peocock, pyckock, poucock, pocok,
pokok, pokokke, and poocok, among others. By the late 17th century it seems
to have taken on its current form. The earliest example of the word in writing comes from about 1300:
“F[o]ure and xxti wild ges and a poucok” (“Four and twenty wild geese and a peacock”).
By the late 14th century Chaucer was using the word to refer to people who strutted and preened ostentatiously,
as the peacock was perceived to do: “And yet as proud a pekok can he pulle.” Interestingly,
the term “proud as a peacock” is still used to this day. Keats spoke of the peacock in his
poem Lamia, from 1812: “Eyed like a pea~cock, and all crimson barr’d.” George
Eliot uses the peacock to refer to a showy person (1866): “How came he to have such a nice-stepping long-necked peacock
for his daughter?“
When the Spanish came to the New World and first saw the turkey,
the only other animal that the turkey resembled, to them, was the peacock, so the Spanish word for turkey is pavo,
coming from Latin pavo “peacock”. If you know what a turkey looks like, with its large
display of tail feathers, you can probably understand why the Spanish thought turkeys resembled peacocks. Peacocks
were also eaten like chicken, and the fact that turkey was also found to be pretty tasty might have influenced the Spanish
term for the turkey.
There is also an astronomical constellation called Pavo
or The Peacock. There are other animals with the word peacock in their names, as well, such as the
peacock fish, so named because of its brilliant coloring of red, blue, green and white; and the peacock
butterfly, which has eye-like spots similar to those on the tail feather of the peacock. There is also
peacock copper, which is iridescent, showing greens and blues when moved in the light.
In India, the peacock is treasured as the national bird, and it
lives wild there and in Sri Lanka. The standard peacock which most of us see in the United States is called
an India blue. There is also a black shouldered variety, which is similar to the India blue except for,
as you might expect, black shoulders. The male peacock is about the size of a turkey, with a long train
of large feathers. When trying to attract a female, the male erects the train of feathers into a huge fan
shape. Females are not as brightly colored as males and do not have the long train of feathers.
It is thought that the remarkable colors and patterns on the male peacock’s feathers served as camouflage in
the brilliant colors of the tropical rainforest, where it originated.
There is a jungle peacock which is found in Burma, Malaysia and
Java, and it is golden-green where the variety from India is blue. White peacocks sometimes turn up in
captivity, but they must not survive long in the wild, as they are not usually seen there. Apparently their
white plumage makes them too easily seen by predators.
You might be surprised to learn that the peacock is mentioned in
the Old Testament of the Bible and in ancient Greek plays. Since that far back it was appreciated as a
beautiful animal and a display of wealth. The taxonomical name of the Indian peacock is Pavo cristatus
(cristatus=crested), and the jungle peacock is Pavo muticus (muticus=beardless).
