stormy petrel

noun

the British storm petrel, Hydrobates pelagicus, of the eastern Atlantic Ocean, Mediterranean Sea, and Indian Ocean.

a person who causes or likes trouble or strife.

Origin:
1770–80

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.
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Stormy petrel is always a great word to know.

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a fool or simpleton; ninny.

a gadget; dingus; thingumbob.

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Collins

World English Dictionary

stormy petrel

—n
1.	another name for storm petrel
2.	a person who brings or portends trouble

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
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Matching Quote

"We went to see the ocean, and that is probably the best place of all our coast to go to. If you go by water, you may experience what it is to leave and to approach these shores; you may see the stormy petrel by the way, thalassodroma, running over the sea, and if the weather is but a little thick, may lose sight of the land in mid-passage. I do not know where there is another beach in the Atlantic States, attached to the mainland, so long, and at the same time so straight, and completely uninterrupted by creeks or coves or fresh-water rivers and marshes."

-Henry David Thoreau