carrion
Meaning
-
- Rotting flesh of a dead animal or person.
- Corrupt or horrid matter.
- (obsolete) Filth, garbage.
- (obsolete) The flesh of a living human body; also (Christianity), sinful human nature.
- (obsolete) A dead body; a carcass, a corpse.
- (obsolete) An animal which is in poor condition or worthless; also, an animal which is a pest or vermin.
- (obsolete) A contemptible or worthless person.
Synonyms
Frequency
Hyphenated as
car‧ri‧on
Pronounced as (IPA)
/ˈkæ.ɹɪ.ən/
Etymology
In summary
The noun is derived from Middle English careine, caroigne (“dead body, corpse; animal carcass; reanimated corpse; gangrenous or rotting body or flesh; mortal nature; (derogatory) living body; (figurative) disgusting or worthless thing”), borrowed from Anglo-Norman careine, caroigne, charogne, and Old French charoigne, Northern Old French caˈronië, caroine, caroigne (modern French charogne), probably from Vulgar Latin *carōnia, from Latin caro (“flesh”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *(s)ker- (“to cut off, sever; to divide, separate”)) + -ia (suffix forming nouns). Doublet of crone. The regular modern English form would be *carren, *carron /ˈkæɹən/ (this is found dialectally; see similar kyarn); the intervening /i/ is probably a hypercorrection based on the analogy of words like merlin/merlion. The adjective is derived from the noun.
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Notes