The word duck comes from Old English dūce 'diver', a derivative of the verb *dūcan 'to duck, bend down low as if to get under something, or dive', because of the way many species in the dabbling duck group feed by upending; compare with Dutch duiken and German tauchen 'to dive'. Pacific black duck displaying the characteristic upending "duck". This word replaced Old English ened/ænid 'duck', possibly to avoid confusion with other words, like ende 'end' with similar forms. Other Germanic languages still have similar words for duck, for example, Dutch eend, German Ente and Norwegian and. The word ened/ænid was inherited from Proto-Indo-European; cf. Latin anas "duck", Lithuanian ántis 'duck', Ancient Greek νῆσσα/νῆττα (nēssa/nētta) 'duck', and Sanskrit ātí 'water bird', among others.
