cormorant
Part of speech: noun
Morphological type: simple
Etymology: PIE word
 *ḱorh₂wós
From Middle English cormeraunt (“great cormorant (Phalacrocorax carbo); other types of aquatic bird”) [and other forms], from Old French cormaran, cor-maraunt [and other forms] (modern French cormoran), possibly variants of *corp-marin, from Medieval Latin corvus marīnus (literally “sea-raven”), with the ending -morant possibly derived from French moran (“marine, maritime”), from Breton mor (“sea”), with -an corrupted in English to -ant. Latin corvus is ultimately derived from Proto-Indo-European *ḱorh₂wós (“raven”), which is imitative of the harsh cry of the bird; while marīnus (“of or pertaining to the sea, marine”) is from Latin mare (“sea”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *móri (“sea; standing water”), possibly from *mer- (“sea; lake; wetland”)) + -īnus (suffix meaning ‘of or pertaining to’).
Cognates
* Catalan corbmari
* Occitan corpmari
* Portuguese corvomarinho
Inflected forms:
form: cormorants
pos: noun
tags: plural
Senses:
gloss: Any of various medium-large black seabirds of the family Phalacrocoracidae which dive into water for fish and other aquatic animals, found throughout the world except for islands in the centre of the Pacific Ocean; specifically, the great cormorant (Phalacrocorax carbo).
pos: noun
examples: Th' Eele-murthering Hearne, and greedy Cormorant, / That neare the Creekes in moriſh Marſhes haunt.
Thence up he [Satan] flew, and on the Tree of Life, / The middle Tree and higheſt there that grew, / Sat like a Cormorant; […]
The cormorant on high / VVheels from the deep, and ſcreams along the land.
I may mention, that I one day observed a cormorant playing with a fish which it had caught. Eight times successively the bird let its prey go, then dived after it, and although in deep water, brought it each time to the surface. […] I do not know of any other instance where dame Nature appears so wilfully cruel.
These pictures were in water colours. […] One gleam of light lifted into relief a half-submerged mast, on which sat a cormorant, dark and large, with wings flecked with foam; […]
The strong air would soon restore Jonathan; it has quite restored me. I have an appetite like a cormorant, am full of life, and sleep well.
A man was swimming out towards them, his flailing arms black and defined in the heat-hazy radiance as the wings of a cormorant that skimmed the water.
gloss: A voracious eater; also, a person who, or thing which, is aggressively greedy for wealth, etc.
pos: noun
tags: also
archaic
attributive
figuratively
examples: In lyke maner who will nat haue in extreme detestation the insatiable gloteny of Vitellius, Fabius Gurges, Apicius, and dyuers other, to whiche carmorantes, neither lande, water, ne ayre, mought be sufficient.
VVith eagre feeding foode doth choke the feeder, / Light vanitie inſatiate cormorant, / Conſuming meanes ſoone praies vpon it ſelfe: […]
Let Fame, that all hunt after in their lyues, / Liue regiſtred vpon our brazen Tombes, / And then grace vs, in the diſgrace of death: / VVhen ſpight of cormorant deuouring Time, / Th[']endeavour of this preſent breath may buy: / That honour vvhich ſhall bate his ſythes keene edge, / And make vs heires of all eternitie.
Should by the Cormorant belly be reſtrain'd, / VVho is the ſinke a th'body.
Surfetters, and Cormorants he compared to beasts voyd of reason.
VVhy, vvhat a Cormorant in Love am I! vvho not contented vvith the ſlavery of honourable Love in one place, and the pleaſure of enjoying ſome half a ſcore Miſtreſſes of my ovvn acquiring; muſt yet take Vainlove’s Buſineſs upon my hands, becauſe it lay too heavy upon his: […]
Law is a Bottomleſs-Pit, it is a Cormorant, a Harpy, that devours every thing; […]
His treaſur’d ſtores theſe Cormorants conſume, / VVhoſe bones, defrauded of a regal tomb / And common turf, lie naked on the plain, / Or doom’d to vvelter in the vvhelming main.
She had discovered, within a short time, that doctors were not the cormorants (often ignorant, but always insatiable) she had supposed them to be, and that certain causes produced certain effects;...
Derived words: cormorant fishing
little black cormorant
Translations: