Words related to duck
"excellent," slang from 1897 (often ironical),perhaps from duckie as a term of endearment (by 1853). Rev. Palmer ["Folk-Etymology," 1882] finds the use of duck as a term of endearment "identical with Danish dukke, a baby or puppet (Wolff), Ger. docke, a doll or puppet, Shetland duckie, a doll or little girl ...," and thinks it probably is not a metaphoric use of the water-bird word, or related to the much earlier slang or dialectal noun meaning "a woman's breast" ["...whose pritty duckys I trust shortly to kysse," Henry VIII, c. 1536 letter to Anne Boleyn, who, contrary to historical rumor, did not have three of them], which perhaps is from dug (n.).
1640s, "course, direction," from Latin ductus "a leading, a conduit pipe," noun use of past participle of ducere "to lead" (from PIE root *deuk- "to lead"). Anatomical sense "vessel of an animal body by which blood, lymph, etc., are conveyed" is from 1660s. Meaning "conduit, channel" is 1713; that of "air tube in a structure" is from 1884.
Duct tape originally was duck tape (1894), long, non-adhesive strips of plain cotton duck cloth used in various mechanical processes; from duck (n.2). The name was transferred to a plastic-coated adhesive tape used by U.S. soldiers in World War II (perhaps in part because it was waterproof). It continued in civilian use after the war, and the name shifted to duct tape by 1958, perhaps because it was frequently used on air ducts, which also accounts for its standard silver-gray color.
