Noun: pelican
| Singular | pelican |
| Plural | pelicans |
Sample Sentences
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The old have outlived that mental world we so misname in calling it a world of enjoyment;—they have outlived the feverish dreams which waste those keen hopes—the pelicans of the heart, feeding on the life-blood of their parent;—they have now no part in the excitement of success, whether in its desire or disappointment. [1831, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter III, in Romance and Reality. […], volume III, London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC, page 54:]
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Pelicans fly below us with stiffly formal strokes, and gulls wheel and keen. [1981, Gene Wolfe, chapter VIII, in The Claw of the Conciliator (The Book of the New Sun; 2), New York: Timescape, →ISBN, page 71:]
Nouns inflected like pelican
soldier's woundwort,
Nicosian,
whopper,
greypate,
tactile sign language,
chronotrope,
Rosie Lee,
dissentient,
photoinactivator,
sulphonediimine,
coastal waterfall,
residuary devise,
bituminization,
nitrosonaphthol,
smṛiti,
geosphere,
backscreen,
mensuralist,
flocculate,
flocculant, etc. (List truncated at 20 nouns)
Etymology
1. From Middle English pellican, pellicane, from Old English pellican (“pelican”), from Latin pelecānus, from Ancient Greek πελεκάν (pelekán),
2. πέλεκυς (pélekus, “hatchet”). See: Middle English Nouns '
pellican', Old English Nouns '
pellican', Latin Nouns '
pelecānus', Ancient Greek Nouns '
πελεκάν'.