Dictionary

ossifrage en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• /ˈɒsɪfɹɪd͡ʒ/

Etymology

From Middle French ossifrage, from Latin ossifraga (“osprey”), ossifragus (“osprey”), from ossifragus (“bone breaking”).

Meanings

1. (archaic) Gypaetus barbatus, the bearded vulture, the diet of which is almost exclusively bone marrow.
   • And these are they which ye shall have in abomination among the fowls; they shall not be eaten, they are an abomination: the eagle, and the ossifrage, and the ospray […] 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Leviticus 11:13:
   • Calcareous lies, slate, and trap are still to be found there, rising from layers of conglomerate, like teeth from a gum; but the pickaxe has broken up and leveled those bristling, rugged peaks which were once the fearful perches of the ossifrage. 1880, [uncredited English translator], The Man who Laughs by Victor Hugo, Book the Third, Chapter I
   • Yes; for these two passions, when they enter into a man, alter his wisdom and understanding and judgment and wit, and he is like the Ossifrage which, for precaution against the hunters, abode in the upper air, of the excess of his subtlety […] 1885–1888, Richard F[rancis] Burton, transl. and editor, “The Spider and the Wind. [Night 162.]”, in A Plain and Literal Translation of the Arabian Nights’ Entertainments, now Entituled The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night […], Shammar edition, volume (please specify the volume), [London]: […] Burton Club […], →OCLC:
   • The aged sisters draw us into life: we wail, batten, sport, clip, clasp, sunder, dwindle, die: over us dead they bend. First, saved from waters of old Nile, among bulrushes, a bed of fasciated wattles: at last the cavity of a mountain, an occulted sepulchre amid the conclamation of the hillcat and the ossifrage. 1922 February 2, James Joyce, “[Episode 14]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company […], →OCLC:
2. (obsolete) The young of the sea eagle or bald eagle.
3. (UK) The osprey.
   • And their young Ospraies bee counted a kind of Ossifragi: from them come the lesser Geires, they againe breed the greater, which engender not at all. Some reckon yet another kind of Ægle, which they cal Barbatæ; and the Tuscanes, Ossifrage. 1601, C[aius] Plinius Secundus [i.e., Pliny the Elder], “[Book X.] 3.”, in Philemon Holland, transl., The Historie of the World. Commonly Called, The Naturall Historie of C. Plinius Secundus. […], (please specify |tome=1 or 2), London: […] Adam Islip, →OCLC:
   • And we were just about To turn and face the foe, as some tire bird Barbarians pelt at, drive with shouts away From shelter in what rocks, however rude, She makes for, to escape the kindled eye, Split beak, crook'd claw o' the creature, cormorant Or ossifrage, that, hardly baffled, hangs Afloat i' the foam, to take her if she turn. 1871 Robert Browning,Balustrion's Adventure: A Transcript from Euripides, line 117–24

Forms

Relateds

ossiphagy