Crossword clues for gannet
gannet
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Gannet \Gan"net\, n. [OE. gant, AS. ganet, ganot, a sea fowl, a fen duck; akin to D. gent gander, OHG. ganazzo. See Gander, Goose.] (Zo["o]l.) One of several species of sea birds of the genus Sula, allied to the pelicans.
Note: The common gannet of Europe and America ( Sula bassana), is also called solan goose, chandel goose, and gentleman. In Florida the wood ibis is commonly called gannet.
Booby gannet. See Sula.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
Old English ganot, name of a kind of sea-bird, from Proto-Germanic *ganton- (cognates: Dutch gent, Middle High German ganiz, Old High German ganazzo "a gander"), from PIE *ghans- "a goose" (see goose (n.)). Old French gante is from Germanic.
Wiktionary
n. 1 any of three species of large seabird in the genus ''Morus'', of the family Sulidae. They have black and white bodies and long pointed wings, and hunt for fish by plunge diving and pursuing their prey underwater. 2 (context British English) a voracious eater; a glutton. 3 (context British English) a person who flocks towards food whenever it is put out.
WordNet
n. large heavily built seabird with a long stout bill noted for its plunging dives for fish
Wikipedia
Gannets are seabirds comprising the genus Morus, in the family Sulidae, closely related to boobies. "Gannet" is derived from Old English ganot "strong or masculine", ultimately from the same Old Germanic root as "gander". Morus is derived from Ancient Greek moros, "foolish", due to the lack of fear shown by breeding gannets and boobies allowing them to be easily killed.
They have a maximum lifespan of up to 35 years.
The gannets are large white birds with yellowish heads; black-tipped wings; and long bills. Northern gannets are the largest seabirds in the North Atlantic, with a wingspan of up to . The other two species occur in the temperate seas around southern Africa, southern Australia and New Zealand.
Gannets hunt fish by diving from a height into the sea and pursuing their prey underwater. Gannets have a number of adaptations which enable them to do this:
- no external nostrils, they are located inside the mouth instead;
- air sacs in the face and chest under the skin which act like bubble wrapping, cushioning the impact with the water;
- positioning of the eyes far enough forward on the face for binocular vision, allowing them to judge distances accurately.
Gannets can dive from a height of , achieving speeds of as they strike the water, enabling them to catch fish much deeper than most airborne birds.
The gannet's supposed capacity for eating large quantities of fish has led to "gannet" becoming a disapproving description of somebody who eats excessively, similar to " glutton".
A gannet is a seabird in the genus Morus, of the Sulidae family; it may also refer to:
Aircraft- Colyaer Gannet S100, a Spanish flying boat
- Fairey Gannet, British Cold-War era naval aircraft
- Gloster Gannet, British pre-WWII aircraft
- Grumman Gannet, original name for the British Fleet Air Arm version of the Grumman Hellcat fighter
- Tugan Gannet, small twin-engined airliner built in Australia in the 1930s
- Gannet Island, New Zealand
- Gannet Islands Ecological Reserve, Labrador, Canada
- Gannet Rock, New Zealand
- HMS Gannet, the name of nine ships and two shore establishments of the Royal Navy
- Gannet Oilfield, in the North Sea, approximately at 57° 11′ 0″ N, 1° 0′ 0″ E
Usage examples of "gannet".
Someone, probably Cloistress Gannet, had seen to it that she had everything she needed to take a bath.
He made the boat ready at daybreak, and certain gannets, pintadoes, boobies, and noddies, and divers with eyes in their heads like fiery jewels--birds whose greedy maws he had often gratified--chose to fancy he must be going a-fishing, and were on the alert, and rather troublesome.
Ahead of them the seabirds rose in alarm, streaming in a long black smear into the sky, the cormorants and gannets whose excreta through the ages had painted the rocks that glaring white.
As we are not writing a teleological argument, but only producing evidence that Darwinism excludes teleology, we cannot follow the details which prove that the wing of the gannet or swift is almost as wonderful and beautiful a specimen of contrivance as the eye of the eagle.
For instance, gannets and guillemots incubate one egg at a time, swifts three, great tits half a dozen or more.
A cloud of sea birds hovered overhead, the gannets diving with folded wings, while the black noddy-terns fluttered down in companies each time the fish drove the small fry to the surface.
Birds of prey, winging from the sea, rising from marshlands, swooping from eyries, hover screaming, gannets, cormorants, vultures, goshawks, climbing woodcocks, peregrines, merlins, blackgrouse, sea eagles, gulls, albatrosses, barnacle geese.
Craggy cliffs were scaled to collect eggs from the multitude of seabirds nesting on the rocky promontories facing the water, and an occasional well-aimed stone brought an added treat of gannet, gull, or great auk.
These bonettas were so anxious to catch them, that they came on shore also, and then the gannets picked them all up.
I could remember my grandfather's words before I had ever seen a gannet dive: 'Aye,' he'd said, his thick, guttural voice burring at us, 'ye'll no' see a finer sight of heaven, for there's nae muckle fowl (he pronounced it the Norwegian way - Fugl) can dive like a solan goose.
He had fitted up a workshop in a garden shed, and in it he had built a Stuart Turner steam engine and two of Keith Stewart's designs, the five cc Hornet single-cylinder compression ignition engine with its built-in reduction gear, and the more ambitious twenty cc Gannet four-cylinder horizontally opposed four-stroke engine.
Moss covered the rude paving of their temples, and the images of their gods, on the cliffs above, were roosting places for gannet and frigate bird.
Tyndall, reluctantly and after much heart-searching, had decided that the Portpatrick and Gannet were suspect, a potential liability: they were to escort the crippled carrier back to Scapa.
By bogle and houlets sent by Nick, by gannets from witches in the west, by the soul in my body, by the ghosts of my parents, by the Holy God and His Son, I swear that Enoch be my brother and I’ll ne’er deceive him by word or by deed on pain of death.
Guillemots, gannets, puffins, razor-bills, little auks, kittiwakes.