crowbill
See also: crow-bill
English
editEtymology
editAn 18th-century illustration of surgical instruments, with a crowbill (sense 1) shown in the bottom right corner as figure 5.
From crow (“bird of the genus Corvus”) + bill (“beak of a bird”). Sense 1 (“kind of forceps”) is probably from its appearance, while sense 2 (“type of poleaxe”) is a calque of French bec de corbin (literally “crow or raven's beak”).
Pronunciation
edit- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /ˈkɹəʊbɪl/
Audio (Southern England): (file) - (General American) IPA(key): /ˈkɹoʊˌbɪl/
- Hyphenation: crow‧bill
Noun
editcrowbill (plural crowbills)
- (surgery) A kind of forceps for extracting bullets, etc., from wounds.
- Synonym: crow's bill
- (weaponry, historical) Synonym of bec de corbin (“poleaxe with a modified hammerhead and a spike mounted on the top of the pole”)
Alternative forms
editHypernyms
editRelated terms
editTranslations
editkind of forceps for extracting bullets, etc., from wounds
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synonym of bec de corbin — see bec de corbin
Further reading
edit- bec de corbin on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
- “crow-bill, n.”, in OED Online , Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, July 2023.
- “crow-bill, n.”, in Collins English Dictionary.
Categories:
- English exocentric compounds
- English compound terms
- English terms calqued from French
- English terms derived from French
- English 2-syllable words
- English terms with IPA pronunciation
- English terms with audio links
- English lemmas
- English nouns
- English countable nouns
- en:Surgery
- en:Weapons
- English terms with historical senses
- English noun-noun compound nouns
- en:Medical equipment
- en:Polearms