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Male birds are nearly always called cocks, and female birds called hens. So, you have turkey cock/turkey hen, peacock/peahen, blackbird cock/blackbird hen. There are some exceptions, e.g. birds of prey, where the male is a tiercel, and the female still a hen (a tiercel eagle, a hen-eagle), or swans, where the male is a cob, and the female is a pen (but this may originate from regional dialect variations). Rooster is an alternative to chicken cock, mainly used in North America. This is a relatively new word, possibly coined to get around the sexual connatations of the word 'cock'. Hope this helps... BTW, it is so, so sad that I know things like this... ;) TTFN, Tril. |