gull

Definition

A seabird of the genus Larus or of the subfamily Larinae.

Etymology

Inherited from Middle English gulle, from a Brythonic language (compare Breton gouelan, Welsh gwylan, and Cornish golan), from Proto-Brythonic *gwuɨlann, from Proto-Celtic *weilannā (“seagull”). Cognate with Old Irish foílenn, Scottish Gaelic faoileag. Compare French goéland, a borrowing from Breton. Eclipsed Middle English lare (borrowed from Latin larus) and Middle English mewe (from Old English mæw).

Example Sentences

• "The tide was out, and we drew up amid the strong bracing smell of seaweed, with gulls screeching, wheeling around, and gliding on the wind."
• "Most gulls don’t bother to learn more than the simplest facts of flight—how to get from shore to food and back again.[…]For this gull, though, it was not eating that mattered, but flight."