the.com/quail
a fist-sized bird wearing a question mark on its forehead and running like it owes money
means To shrink back, flinch, or lose courage in the face of something frightening — or, as a noun, a small plump ground-dwelling game bird.
from Two threads tangle here. The bird comes from Middle English 'quaille,' borrowed from Old French 'quaille,' likely from Medieval Latin 'quaccula' — an imitation of the bird's clucking call, the same way 'cuckoo' apes its own song. The verb 'to quail,' meaning to cower, has a murkier root: possibly from Middle Dutch 'quelen' (to suffer, be ill) or related to Old English 'cwelan' (to die). The two words almost certainly arrived by separate paths and only later sat side by side in English, so the trembling bird and the trembling coward are coincidental neighbors, not blood relatives.
- head plume
- the bobbing topknot is feathers, not one curved feather
- covey huddle
- they sleep in tight circles, tails in, eyes out
- explosive flush
- burst into flight to startle predators, then crash-land fast
- speedy egg
- females lay within weeks of hatching themselves
- verb too
- to quail means to shrink back in fear
bob white — north american quail species named for its distinctive 'bob-white' call, found across eastern united states
coturnix japonica — japanese quail domesticated for eggs and meat production, yielding 300+ eggs annually per bird
california quail — state bird of california since 1931, identified by distinctive head plume and found in western united states