English
fulmar
Fulmar comes from Old Norse fúlmár.
- Old Norsec. 800–1350fúlmár
- Icelandicmodernsame form
- Englishearliest quotation 2004fulmar
attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed
Lineage
- Old Norsec. 800–1350fúlmár
- Icelandicmodernsame form
- Englishearliest quotation 2004fulmar
Earliest quotation: 2004, Anne Birgitte Gotfredsen, Tinna Møbjerg: “In the southern districts, the Inuit hunted fulmars with…”
A compound of fúll ‘foul’ + már ‘gull, mew’
Proto-Indo-European *pū- ‘be rotten’
Proto-Germanic *fūlaz ‘foul, dirty’
Old Norse fúll ‘foul’
Proto-Germanic *maiwaz ‘gull, seagull’
Old Norse már ‘gull, mew’
The story
From Icelandic fúlmár, from Old Norse fúlmár, from Old Norse fúll (‘foul’) + már (‘gull, mew’) (see English mew), evidently in reference to the foul-smelling vomit it ejects to deter predators.
Every English word from Old Norse fúlmár
Today it means
noun Either of two species of pelagic seabird in the genus Fulmarus, Fulmarus glacialis and F. glacialoides, which breed on cliffs.
Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word.
Etymograph / Old Norse fúlmár / fulmar