carrion

See also: Carrion

English

Etymology

Old French caroigne (see modern French charogne), from Latin caro (“flesh”).

Pronunciation
  • IPA(key): /ˈkæ.ɹi.ən/
  • Audio (US)(file)

Noun

carrion (usually uncountable, plural carrions)

  1. (chiefly uncountable) Dead flesh; carcasses.
    Vultures feed on carrion.
    • Edmund Spenser
      They did eat the dead carrions.
    • 1859, Charles Dickens, The Haunted House
      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 […]
    • 1922, Virginia Woolf, Jacob's Room, Vintage Classics, paperback edition, page 119
      Perhaps the Purple Emperor is feasting, as Morris says, upon a mass of putrid carrion at the base of an oak tree.
  2. (countable, obsolete, derogatory) A contemptible or worthless person.
    • Shakespeare
      Old feeble carrions.

Derived terms

Translations
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