cormorant

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).

   “Th' Eele-murthering Hearne, and greedy Cormorant, / That neare the Creekes in moriſh Marſhes haunt.”

   “Thence up he [Satan] flew, and on the Tree of Life, / The middle Tree and higheſt there that grew, / Sat like a Cormorant; […]”

   “The cormorant on high / VVheels from the deep, and ſcreams along the land.”

   “I may mention, that I one day observed a cormorant playing with a fish which it had caught. Eight times successively the bird let its prey go, then dived after it, and although in deep water, brought it each time to the surface. […] I do not know of any other instance where dame Nature appears so wilfully cruel.”

   “These pictures were in water colours. […] One gleam of light lifted into relief a half-submerged mast, on which sat a cormorant, dark and large, with wings flecked with foam; […]”

2. (also, archaic, attributive, figuratively)A voracious eater; also, a person who, or thing which, is aggressively greedy for wealth, etc.

   “In lyke maner who will nat haue in extreme detestation the insatiable gloteny of Vitellius, Fabius Gurges, Apicius, and dyuers other, to whiche carmorantes, neither lande, water, ne ayre, mought be sufficient.”

   “VVith eagre feeding foode doth choke the feeder, / Light vanitie inſatiate cormorant, / Conſuming meanes ſoone praies vpon it ſelfe: […]”

   “Let Fame, that all hunt after in their lyues, / Liue regiſtred vpon our brazen Tombes, / And then grace vs, in the diſgrace of death: / VVhen ſpight of cormorant deuouring Time, / Th[']endeavour of this preſent breath may buy: / That honour vvhich ſhall bate his ſythes keene edge, / And make vs heires of all eternitie.”

   “Should by the Cormorant belly be reſtrain'd, / VVho is the ſinke a th'body.”

   “Surfetters, and Cormorants he compared to beasts voyd of reason.”

adj

1. (archaic)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.”

   “... the victims of fanaticism who frequent Exeter Hall, to be plucked by tax gatherers more cormorant than your own excise-men at home?”