mollemoke
English
Alternative forms
Etymology
Borrowed from Swedish mallemucke (“the stormy petrel”).
Noun
mollemoke (plural mollemokes)
- Any of several species of large pelagic petrels and fulmars, such as Fulmarus glacialis of the North Atlantic and several species of Pterodroma of the Southern Ocean.
- 1877, Daid Murray Smith, Arctic Expeditions from British and Foreign Shores:
- Ivory gulls and mollemokes were seen farther on. They did not lose sight of the birds after this, as far as they went. The ivory gulls flew very high, but the mollemokes alit, and fed on the water, flying over it well out to sea, as we had seen them do in Baffin Bay.
Synonyms
- (Fulmarus glacialis): northern fulmar, Arctic fulmar, fulmar
- (Pterodroma): gadfly petrel
Further reading
Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “mollemoke”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)