Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Either of two large auks, Uria aalge or U. lomvia, having a black back and head and white underparts.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The common guillemot, Uria or Lomvia troile, and other species of the genus, as U. or L. brünnichi, the thick-billed murre or guillemot.
  • noun The similar but quite distinct razor-billed auk, Alca or Utamania torda. See cut under razor-bill.
  • noun See mur.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Zoöl.) Any one of several species of sea birds of the genus Uria, or Catarractes; a guillemot.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun any of the seabirds of the genus Uria in the auk family

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun black-and-white diving bird of northern seas

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Earlier, any of various species of guillemots and other auks, probably ultimately imitative of the call of certain guillemots; akin to Scots marrot, murre, razorbill.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Unknown origin

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