[Imitative: see QUACK sb.2] An imitation of the note of a duck; a nursery name for a duck.
1865. Dickens, Mut. Fr., III. xv. Mew says the cat, Quack-quack says the duck.
1869. ‘Ouida,’ Puck, xxxviii. (1873), 491. [They] could not themselves tell for their lives … a canvasback duck from a quack-quack of the gutter.
1889. Mivart, Truth, 226. ‘Quack-quack’ and ‘gee-gee’ are just as good abstract universal terms as ‘duck’ and ‘horse.’
Hence Quack-quacking vbl. sb.
1824. Carlyle, trans. Wilhelm Meister (1864), II. 257. As the duck on the pond … to the future quack-quacking and gibble-gabbling of his life.
