duckbill

1. 1.

   primitive fish of the Mississippi valley having a long paddle-shaped snout

   SynonymspaddlefishPolyodon spathula

   Broaderganoid

   Part ofPolyodon
2. 2.

   small densely furred aquatic monotreme of Australia and Tasmania having a broad bill and tail and webbed feet; only species in the family Ornithorhynchidae

   Synonymsplatypusduckbilled platypusduck-billed platypusOrnithorhynchus anatinus

   Broadermonotreme

   Part ofOrnithorhynchus

1. 1.

   having a beak resembling that of a duck

   “a duck-billed dinosaur”

   Synonymsduck-billed

   Similarbeaked

Other forms of duckbill

plural

duckbills·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about duckbill

What does duckbill mean?

duckbill means "primitive fish of the Mississippi valley having a long paddle-shaped snout". That is the primary sense; the word has 3 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in duckbill?

duckbill has 2 syllables: duck-bill. The stress falls on "duck".

What is another word for duckbill?

Close synonyms include paddlefish, Polyodon spathula, platypus, duckbilled platypus, duck-billed platypus. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is duckbill a common word?

duckbill is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.