carrion means pertaining to, or made up of, rotting flesh. It carries an Arena rating of 1543, earned across 2 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, carrion ranks #2,075 of 17,058 for Most Vivid Words, #2,821 of 17,052 for Most Ponderous Words, #4,331 of 17,052 for Funniest Words, #4,505 of 17,052 for Scariest Words.
carrion is pronounced /ˈkæ.ɹɪ.ən/.
Why “carrion” is a great word
The rotting flesh of a dead animal or person; also, that which pertains to such decay. From Middle English *caroyne*, borrowed from Anglo-Norman and Old French *charoigne*, from Vulgar Latin *carōnia*, from Latin *caro* ("flesh") + *-ia* (noun-forming suffix), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *(s)ker-* ("to cut off, sever"). Unlike "cadaver," a clinical term for a human body for study, or "offal," the fresh waste of a butcher, carrion is the body abandoned to nature's aftermath—the flesh returned to the earth through slow dissolution. It is the swollen flank of a fox by the roadside, the sweet-suffocating air above a carcass, the green shimmer of blowfly larvae beneath translucent skin—an honest word for what remains when death has finished its first work and the living world arrives to claim its due.
Etymology
The noun is derived from Middle English caroyne (“corpse, carrion, something disgusting”), borrowed from Anglo-Norman careine, caroigne, charogne, and Old French charoigne, Northern Old French caˈronië, caroine, caroigne (modern French charogne), probably from Vulgar Latin *carōnia, from Latin caro (“flesh”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *(s)ker- (“to cut off, sever; to divide, separate”)) + -ia (suffix forming nouns). Doublet of crone.
The regular modern English form would be *carren, *carron /ˈkæɹən/ (this is found dialectally; see similar kyarn); the intervening /i/ is either a hypercorrection based on the analogy of words like merlin/merlion or, more likely, represents metathesis of the last element of the diphthong in caroyne.
The adjective is derived from the noun.
adj
- Pertaining to, or made up of, rotting flesh.
- Disgusting, horrid, rotten.
- Of the living human body, the soul, etc.: fleshly, mortal, sinful.
- Very thin; emaciated, skeletonlike.
- Of or pertaining to death.
noun
- Rotting flesh of a dead animal or person.e.g.“Vultures feed on carrion.”
- Corrupt or horrid matter.e.g.“[T]here are melancholy sceptics with a taste for carrion who batten on the hideous facts in history,—persecutions, inquisitions, St. Bartholomew massacres, devilish lives, […]”
- Filth, garbage.
- The flesh of a living human body; also (Christianity), sinful human nature.
- A dead body; a carcass, a corpse.
- An animal which is in poor condition or worthless; also, an animal which is a pest or vermin.
- A contemptible or worthless person.
Words closest in meaning
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