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parson's nose

parson's nose

9.9
The fatty tail of a cooked bird like a chicken or turkey
  • noun
  • /ˈpɑr.sənz noʊz/
  • UK
translation icon : pico de cura
  • The chef served the roasted chicken with a crispy parson's nose that everyone enjoyed.

Examples

  • Many people love the parson's nose because it's the most flavorful part of the turkey.

  • For Thanksgiving dinner, my grandmother always insists on including the parson's nose as a special treat.

  • Have a piece of parson's nose...

    Fiction book (2000)

Synonyms

pope's nose
vsparson's nose
  • UK
1 9.6

A fatty tail end of a cooked chicken or turkey that many people like to eat

is the more general edible tail term not emphasizing delicacy

Surface Forms

parson's nose singular

Morphology

parson's + nose

The phrase refers to the fatty tail of a cooked bird, but knowing 'parson' (a clergyman) and 'nose' (the facial organ) does not allow a learner to deduce that meaning: 'nose' here names a tailpiece and 'parson's' is an historical epithet with no compositional relevance. This is an idiomatic, historically motivated name, so its meaning is not predictable from the constituents for a B1 learner.

Etymology

Parson's nose may come from a time when a church parson was given the bird's fatty nose as a special 'treat' after a meal, with 'nose' used playfully for the tail. That's why today the phrase means 'the fatty tail of a cooked bird'.