Added 9 October 2026
quack
/kwæk/ noun
In Latin: tetrinnio Wiktionary
noun Definition from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). Pronunciation from Wiktionary, via Kaikki.org. More about quack at Wordnik → Where our words come from →
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The vocalisation made by a duck.
Did you hear that duck make a quack?
verb
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Of a duck, to make its characteristic vocalisation.
The more breadcrumbs I threw on the ground, the more they quacked.
- To make a sound similar to the quack of a duck.
- Of a queen bee: to make a high-pitched sound during certain stages of development.
interjection
- A duck's quack.
noun
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A fraudulent healer, especially a bombastic peddler in worthless treatments, a doctor who makes false diagnoses for monetary benefit, or an untrained or poorly trained doctor who uses fraudulent credentials to attract patients .mw-parser-output .defdate{font-size:smaller}
That doctor is nothing but a lousy quack!
- Any similar charlatan or incompetent professional.
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Any doctor.
That quack wants me to quit smoking, eat less, and start exercising. The nerve!
Origin
From Middle English *quacken, queken (“to croak like a frog; make a noise like a duck, goose, or quail”), from quack, qwacke, quek, queke (“quack”, interjection and noun), also kek, keke, whec-, partly of imitative origin and partly from Middle Dutch quacken (“to croak, quack”), from Old Dutch *kwaken (“to croak, quack”), from Proto-West Germanic *kwakōn, from Proto-Germanic *kwakaną, *kwakōną (“to croak”), of imitative origin.
From Wiktionary, via Kaikki.org (CC BY-SA)