What does "petrel" mean?

Any of various species of black, grey, or white seabirds in the order Procellariiformes.

What is a synonym for "petrel"?

Common synonyms include: atlas, magpie, missile, rocket.

Petrel

//ˈpɛtɹəl// noun

noun ·Uncommon ·College level

Definitions

Noun

1
Any of various species of black, grey, or white seabirds in the order Procellariiformes.
"The seventh of May following, we first saw many Birds in bignesse of Cliffe Pidgeons, and after divers other as Pettrels, Cootes, Hagbuts, Pengwins, Murres, Gannets, Cormorants, Guls, with many else in our English Tongue of no name."
2
relatively small long-winged tube-nosed bird that flies far from land wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms

atlas magpie missile rocket

Example

More examples

"The seventh of May following, we first saw many Birds in bignesse of Cliffe Pidgeons, and after divers other as Pettrels, Cootes, Hagbuts, Pengwins, Murres, Gannets, Cormorants, Guls, with many else in our English Tongue of no name."

Etymology

From earlier pitteral. Perhaps a diminutive of Peter, with reference to St. Peter's walking on the water (Matthew 14:29). A derivation from patter or pitter-patter has been suggested, for instance by ornithologist Elliott Ladd Coues.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.