cormorant
any of several voracious, totipalmate seabirds of the family Phalacrocoracidae, as Phalacrocorax carbo, of America, Europe, and Asia, having a long neck and a distensible pouch under the bill for holding captured fish, used in China for catching fish.
a greedy person.
Origin of cormorant
1Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024
How to use cormorant in a sentence
Four or five cormorants left a tree on the American bank and swooped out over our heads, dark shapes against the purple sky.
It was an immense flight of gulls, seamews, and cormorants; a vast multitude of affrighted sea birds.
Toilers of the Sea | Victor HugoWe passed vast numbers of the Florida cormorants—a small species, which breeds in the mangrove islets.
In the Wilds of Florida | W.H.G. KingstonThe great skill of this bird has been made use of, and tame Cormorants are used in China to obtain fish for their masters.
On the Seashore | R. Cadwallader SmithThese cormorants are in flocks of forty and fifty, and the owner in a small canoe travels about with them.
The Life of Gordon, Volume I | Demetrius Charles Boulger
He was not more than the boat's length distant when he dived suddenly and the cormorants flapped aloft.
The Pillar of Light | Louis Tracy
British Dictionary definitions for cormorant
/ (ˈkɔːmərənt) /
any aquatic bird of the family Phalacrocoracidae, of coastal and inland waters, having a dark plumage, a long neck and body, and a slender hooked beak: order Pelecaniformes (pelicans, etc)
Origin of cormorant
1Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
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