Cormorant

Cormorant - (Easton's Bible Dictionary)

(Lev. 11:17; Deut. 14:17), Heb. shalak, "plunging," or "darting down," (the Phalacrocorax carbo), ranked among the "unclean" birds; of the same family group as the pelican. It is a "plunging" bird, and is common on the coasts and the island seas of Palestine. Some think the Hebrew word should be rendered "gannet" (Sula bassana, "the solan goose"); others that it is the "tern" or "sea swallow," which also frequents the coasts of Palestine as well as the Sea of Galilee and the Jordan valley during several months of the year. But there is no reason to depart from the ordinary rendering.

In Isa. 34:11, Zeph. 2:14 (but in R.V., "pelican") the Hebrew word rendered by this name is ka'ath. It is translated "pelican" (q.v.) in Ps. 102:6. The word literally means the "vomiter," and the pelican is so called from its vomiting the shells and other things which it has voraciously swallowed. (See [127]PELICAN.)

Cormorant - (Webster's 1828 Dictionary)

CORMORANT, n. [Cormorant is supposed to be corrupted from corvus marinus, sea raven. The Welsh also call the fowl morvran, sea crow.]

1. The water raven, a large fowl of the pelican kind; the head and neck are black; the coverts of the wings, the scapulars and the back are of a deep green, edged with black and glossed with blue. The base of the lower mandible is covered with a naked yellow skin, which extends under the chin and forms a sort of pouch. This fowl occupies the cliffs by the sea, feeds on fish, and is extremely voracious.

2. A glutton.