The word "buzzard" presents one of the more entertaining cases of transatlantic linguistic confusion. In Britain, a buzzard is a perfectly respectable hawk — the common buzzard (Buteo buteo) is, in fact, the most abundant raptor in the British Isles. In America, calling a bird a buzzard almost invariably means you are looking at a vulture. How a hawk became a vulture is a story of colonial ecology and naming by analogy.
The word enters English from Old French busart, itself derived from Latin buteo, a term used by Roman naturalists for a type of broad-winged, soaring hawk. The Latin word's deeper origins are uncertain — it may be onomatopoeic, imitating the bird's mewing cry, or it may relate to an older Italic root. Pliny the Elder used buteo in his Natural History, and the word survived into the Romance languages, giving French its buse, German its Bussard, and Spanish its busardo.
Old French added the augmentative suffix -art (similar to English -ard in "drunkard" or "coward") to create busart, suggesting a large or clumsy specimen. This was borrowed into Middle English by the 13th century, initially as "busard" before settling into the modern spelling "buzzard" by the 14th century. In medieval England, the buzzard occupied a peculiar position in the hierarchy of falconry: it was considered a sluggish, low-status bird, unfit for gentlemen. The "Book of St. Albans" (1486), which
This reputation for dullness and low cunning followed the word into figurative usage. To call someone a buzzard was to imply stupidity or worthlessness, a usage that persisted into early modern English. Shakespeare used the word contemptuously, and the metaphorical sense survived in American dialect, where "old buzzard" remains a mildly insulting term for a disagreeable person.
When English colonists arrived in North America, they encountered turkey vultures — large, dark birds that soared in lazy circles on thermal updrafts, much as European buzzards do. The visual similarity was strong enough that colonists applied the familiar name to the unfamiliar bird. This transfer stuck in American English, so thoroughly that most Americans would be surprised to learn that a "real" buzzard is actually a hawk.
Science, characteristically, sides with the British. The genus Buteo comprises the broad-winged hawks found worldwide, including the red-tailed hawk, the most common raptor in North America. The turkey vulture belongs to the entirely separate family Cathartidae, meaning "purifiers" — a name that at least acknowledges what vultures actually do for a living. The buzzard, whether hawk or vulture, continues to circle overhead, indifferent to the naming disputes below.