storm petrel
noun
Simple meaning
Any of several small seabirds, of the families Hydrobatidae or Oceanitidae, having dark plumage and a white rump.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
stawrmpuhtruhlSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈstɔɹmpɛtɹəl
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
Any of several small seabirds, of the families Hydrobatidae (northern storm petrels) or Oceanitidae (southern storm petrels), having dark plumage and a white rump.
Any of various small petrels having dark plumage with paler underparts
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
This meaning: Any of several small seabirds, of the families Hydrobatidae (northern storm petrels) or Oceanitidae (southern storm petrels), having dark plumage and a white rump.
Used this way, storm 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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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.