stork
UK /stɔːk/ · US /stɔɹk/ noun, proper noun
Forms storks
- noun A large wading bird with long legs and a long beak of the order Ciconiiformes and its family Ciconiidae.
- noun (folklore or euphemistic) The mythical bringer of babies to families, or good news. “My sister's expecting a visit from the stork.”
- noun (cartomancy) The seventeenth Lenormand card.
- proper noun A surname.
Etymology
Inherited from Middle English stork, from Old English storc, from Proto-West Germanic *stork, from Proto-Germanic *sturkaz, from Proto-Indo-European *sr̥ǵos (“stork”). Near cognates include Dutch stork, German Storch, Swedish stork, and Icelandic storkur. Compare also Latvian stārķis (“stork”), borrowed from Germanic.
* English surname from stork, a nickname for a thin man with long legs.
* Borrowed from German Stork, probably a nickname or a habitational surname from a place in Hesse.
Webster’s 1913
- noun Any one of several species of large wading birds of the family Ciconidæ, having long legs and a long, pointed bill. They are found both in the Old World and in America, and belong to Ciconia and several allied genera. The European white stork (Ciconia alba) is the best known. It commonly makes its nests on the top of a building, a chimney, a church spire, or a pillar. The black stork (C. nigra) is native of Asia, Africa, and Europe. Black-necked stork, the East Indian jabiru.
Sources: Wiktionary · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “stork”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details