petrel
noun
Simple meaning
Any of different species of black, grey, or white seabirds in the order Procellariiformes.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
pehtruhlSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈpɛtɹəl
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
Relatively small long-winged tube-nosed bird that flies far from land
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- C2 · Proficient (estimated)
- Frequency
- Rare
- Formality
- Technical
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Relatively small long-winged tube-nosed bird that flies far from land
Used this way, petrel is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It stays understated rather than dramatic. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Mild
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
Heavy short-tailed oceanic bird of polar regions.
Large brownish petrel chiefly of Antarctic seas.
Sooty black petrel with white markings.
Any of various small petrels having dark plumage with paler underparts.
Sooty black petrel with white markings.
Any of several small diving birds of southern hemisphere seas.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.