carrion

Etymology

From Middle English caroigne, borrowed from Anglo-Norman caroigne, from Vulgar Latin *carōnia, from Latin caro (“flesh”). Compare French charogne and the English doublet crone. The regular modern English form would be *carren, *carron /ˈkæɹ.ən/ (this is found dialectally; see similar kyarn); the intervening /i/ is probably a hypercorrection based on the analogy of words like merlin/merlion.

noun

1. (chiefly uncountable) Dead flesh; carcasses.
   Vultures feed on carrion.
   He brought down with him to our haunted house a little cask of salt beef; for, he is always convinced that all salt beef not of his own pickling, is mere carrion […] 1859, Charles Dickens, The Haunted House
   Perhaps the Purple Emperor is feasting, as Morris says, upon a mass of putrid carrion at the base of an oak tree. 1922, Virginia Woolf, Jacob's Room, paperback edition, Vintage Classics, page 119
2. (countable, obsolete, derogatory) A contemptible or worthless person.