cormorant

---

Pronunciation

• (America) IPA: /ˈkɔɹməɹənt/
• (RP) IPA: /ˈkɔːməɹənt/

Noun

cormorant (plural cormorants)

1. Any of various medium-large black seabirds of the family Phalacrocoracidae, especially the great cormorant, Phalacrocorax carbo.
   • 1667, John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book 4, lines 194-196,

     Thence up he [Satan] flew, and on the Tree of Life,

     The middle Tree and highest there that grew,

     Sat like a Cormorant;

   • 1847, Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre, London: Smith, Elder, Volume 1, Chapter 13, p. 242,

     One gleam of light lifted into relief a half-submerged mast, on which sat a cormorant, dark and large, with wings flecked with foam;

   • 1897, Bram Stoker, Dracula, New York: Grosset and Dunlap, Chapter 9, pp. 100-101,

     The strong air […] has quite restored me. I have an appetite like a cormorant, am full of life, and sleep well.

   • 1987, Nadine Gordimer, A Sport of Nature, New York: Knopf, “Intelligence,” p. 139,

     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.

2. (obsolete) A voracious eater.

   Synonyms: glutton; see also Thesaurus:glutton

   • circa 1595 William Shakespeare, Richard II (play), Act II, Scene 1,

     With eager feeding food doth choke the feeder:

     Light vanity, insatiate cormorant,

     Consuming means, soon preys upon itself.

   • 1725, Alexander Pope (translator), The Odyssey or Homer, London: Bernard Lintot, Volume 1, Book 1, pp. 13-14, lines 207-210,

     His treasur’d stores these Cormorants consume,

     Whose bones, defrauded of a regal tomb

     And common turf, lie naked on the plain,

     Or doom’d to welter in the whelming main.

Translations

• French: cormoran
• German: Kormoran
• Italian: cormorano, marangone
• Portuguese: cormorão, biguá
• Russian: бакла́н
• Spanish: cormorán

Adjective

cormorant

1. Ravenous, greedy.
   • William Shakespeare, Love's Labour's Lost, Act I, Scene 1

     Let fame, that all hunt after in their lives,

     Live regist'red upon our brazen tombs,

     And then grace us in the disgrace of death;

     When, spite of cormorant devouring Time,

     The endeavour of this present breath may buy

     That honour which shall bate his scythe's keen edge,

     And make us heirs of all eternity.

---

This text is extracted from the Wiktionary and it is available under the CC BY-SA 3.0 license | Terms and conditions | Privacy policy 0.003