Mother Carey's hen
- noun
- UK
:
gaviota de Carey
- Ornithologists observed several Mother Carey's hens nesting on the rocky island cliffs.
Examples
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The sailors spotted a Mother Carey's hen skimming just above the stormy waves.
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Superstitious mariners believed seeing a Mother Carey's hen foretold rough weather at sea.
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I saw a Mother Carey's hen flying over the ocean.
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Have you ever spotted Mother Carey's hens during your travels?
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The sailors spotted a Mother Carey's hen skimming just above the stormy waves.
-
Ornithologists observed several Mother Carey's hens nesting on the rocky island cliffs.
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Superstitious mariners believed seeing a Mother Carey's hen foretold rough weather at sea.
Synonyms
1
9.6
A small sea bird with long wings that flies far from land
1
9.9
A small seabird that flies low over the sea and often appears before storms
A small seabird with dark feathers and pale belly that flies over the sea near storms
Surface Forms
Morphology
Mother + Carey's + hen
Although the constituent 'hen' signals a bird and would allow a learner to guess the MWE refers to some kind of bird, the element 'Mother Carey' is a culture-specific proper name/personification with no transparent semantic contribution to identifying a storm petrel. The precise meaning (a particular seabird/storm petrel and its folkloric association) cannot be derived from the parts alone, so partial cues exist but full interpretation requires prior exposure.
Etymology
Mother Carey's hen comes from old sailors who watched small seabirds skimming near rough seas. One popular story says sailors thought these birds were sent by a sea spirit called Mother Carey to warn of storms, so the name came to mean a 'storm petrel' and a sign of 'rough weather'.