carrion

English

Etymology

From Middle English caroigne, borrowed from Anglo-Norman caroigne, from Vulgar Latin *carōnia, from Latin caro (“flesh”). Compare French charogne and the English doublet crone.

The regular modern English form would be *carren, *carron /ˈkæɹ.ən/ (this is found dialectally; see similar kyarn); the intervening /i/ is probably a hypercorrection based on the analogy of words like merlin/merlion.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈkæ.ɹi.ən/
• (dialectal or obsolete) IPA^(key): /ˈkæɹ.ən/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

Noun

carrion (usually uncountable, plural carrions)

1. (chiefly uncountable) Dead flesh; carcasses.

   Vultures feed on carrion.

   • 1596 (date written; published 1633), Edmund Spenser, A Vewe of the Present State of Irelande , Dublin: Societie of Stationers, , →OCLC; republished as A View of the State of Ireland  (Ancient Irish Histories), Dublin: Society of Stationers, Hibernia Press, y John Morrison, 1809, →OCLC:

     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, paperback edition, Vintage Classics, 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.
   • 1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Iulius Cæsar”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies  (First Folio), London: Isaac Iaggard, and Ed Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, :

     Old feeble carrions.

Derived terms

• carrion beetle
• carrion crow
• carrion flower

Translations

References