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KING JAMES BIBLE DICTIONARY

 

Cormorant

The Bible

Bible Usage:

Dictionaries:

  • Included in Eastons: Yes
  • Included in Hitchcocks: No
  • Included in Naves: Yes
  • Included in Smiths: Yes
  • Included in Websters: Yes
  • Included in Strongs: Yes
  • Included in Thayers: No
  • Included in BDB: Yes

Strongs Concordance:

 

Easton's Bible Dictionary
Cormorant

(Leviticus 11:17; Deuteronomy 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 Isaiah 34:11, Zephaniah 2:14 (but in R.V., "pelican") the Hebrew word rendered by this name is ka'ath. It is translated "pelican" (q.v.) in Psalms 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 PELICANS.)


Naves Topical Index
Cormorant

Smith's Bible Dictionary
Cormorant

the representative in the Authorized Version of the Hebrew words kaath and shalac . As to the former, see PELICAN. Shalac occurs only as the name of an unclean bird in (Leviticus 11:17; 14:17) The word has been variously rendered. The etymology points to some plunging bird. The common cormorant (phalacrocorax carbo), which some writers have identified with the shalac , is unknown in the eastern Mediterranean; another species is found south of the Red Sea, but none on the west coast of Palestine.


Webster's 1828 Dictionary
Cormorant

CORMORANT, noun [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.