Which English dialect(s) use "ennet" to mean "duck"?
Since at least Old English, the word duck has been used to describe the aquatic bird, derived from the verb to duck: Proto-Germanic *dūkaną. However, in most other Germanic languages, a word with a different etymology is used for the bird.
The Wiktionary page on Proto-Germanic *anudz lists the following descendants:
English: ende, ennet, annet
The page for ennet says it's now chiefly dialectal. Which dialect(s) would still use any of these words today?
According to the following source, ennet:
(now chiefly dialectal) Duck; drake.
(now chiefly dialectal, Scotland) The common eider.
Dictionary.com
also annet:
n. The eider duck, Somateria mollissima (Abd. 1975). Variant of Ennet, q.v. Cf. also stock annet s.v. Stock, n.1, 17. (4). ne.Sc. 1862 Fraser's Mag. (Feb.) 154:
- A pair of huge “annets,'” that look very white and stately on the tawny water . . . a sharp report is heard. . . . The grey eider splashes away seaward, but the drake lies still and motionless.
(Dictionary of the Scots Language)