cormorant

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

noun

1. 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).
   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. 1987, Nadine Gordimer, “Intelligence”, in A Sport of Nature[…] (A Borzoi Book), New York, N.Y.: Alfred A[braham] Knopf, page 139
2. (figurative, also attributively, archaic or obsolete) A voracious eater; also, a person who, or thing which, is aggressively greedy for wealth, etc.
   (voracious eater):
   Surfetters, and Cormorants he compared to beasts voyd of reason. Although Raleigh is named as the author on the title page of the work, it is doubted that he is the author. 1637, attributed to Walter Raleigh, The Life and Death of Mahomet, the Conquest of Spaine, together with the Rysing and Ruine of the Sarazen Empire, London: […] R[alph] H[odgkinson] for Daniel Frere,[…], →OCLC, page 145

adj

1. (archaic or obsolete) Voracious; aggressively greedy.
   Anti-masonry is as cormorant as death, and will not be satisfied though one half the human race be immolated to appease its infernal appetite. 1830, Boston Masonic Mirror, page 398
   ... the victims of fanaticism who frequent Exeter Hall, to be plucked by tax gatherers more cormorant than your own excise-men at home? 1842, Weekly Globe, page 261