The story
- Old English · inherited from*pūthafoc
- Middle English · inherited fromputtock
- English todayputtock
From Middle English puttock, puttok, potok, puttoc, of uncertain origin; perhaps representing an unattested Old English *putta (“hawk”) + -ock; or perhaps from Old English *pūthafoc (literally “pout-hawk”), equivalent to pout (“a kind of fish”) + hawk. Compare also pout (“a young bird”), poult.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.