petrel

See also: pétrel

English

Petrel (disambiguation) on Wikipedia

From earlier pitteral. Perhaps a diminutive of Peter, with reference to St. Peter's walking on the water (Matthew 14:29).

(Can this⁽⁺⁾ etymology be sourced?)

A derivation from patter or pitter-patter has been suggested, for instance by ornithologist Elliott Ladd Coues.

petrel (plural petrels)

Any of various species of black, grey, or white seabirds in the order Procellariiformes.
- 1625, Samuel Purchas, Hakluytus Posthumus, or Purchas his Pilgrimes, The Relation of Captaine GOSNOLS Voyage to the North part of Virginia, begunne the sixe and twentieth of March, Anno 42. ELIZABETHAE Reginae 1602. and delivered by GABRIEL ARCHER, a Gentleman in the said Voyage:
  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.
- 1703, William Dampier, chapter III, in A Voyage to New Holland, etc. in the Year 1699:
  In a storm they will hover close under the ship's stern in the wake of the ship (as it is called) or the smoothness which the ship's passing has made on the sea; and there as they fly (gently then) they pat the water alternately with their feet as if they walked upon it; though still upon the wing. And from hence the seamen give them the name of petrels in allusion to St. Peter's walking upon the Lake of Gennesareth.