carrion

Pronunciation: /ˈkæɹ.ɪ.ən/

The English word “carrion” has 12 meanings listed here.

noun

Rotting flesh of a dead animal or person.
Corrupt or horrid matter.
Filth, garbage.
The flesh of a living human body; also (Christianity), sinful human nature.
A dead body; a carcass, a corpse.
An animal which is in poor condition or worthless; also, an animal which is a pest or vermin.
A contemptible or worthless person.

adjective

Pertaining to, or made up of, rotting flesh.
Disgusting, horrid, rotten.
Of the living human body, the soul, etc.: fleshly, mortal, sinful.
Very thin; emaciated, skeletonlike.
Of or pertaining to death.

Etymology

The noun is derived from Middle English caroyne (“corpse, carrion, something disgusting”), borrowed from Anglo-Norman careine, caroigne, charogne, and Old French charoigne, Northern Old French caˈronië, caroine, caroigne (modern French charogne), probably from Vulgar Latin *carōnia, from Latin caro (“flesh”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *(s)ker- (“to cut off, sever; to divide, separate”))…

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Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.