Carrion is the rotting flesh of dead animals. Carrion crows, feed on carrion, the smell of carrion.
Scavengers that live on it are the reason the countryside is not knee-deep in dead things, and vultures are so good at the job that their loss in India caused a public health crisis. A carrion crow is named for what it eats.
1nouncarrionThe rotting flesh of dead animals.
“Vultures circled over the plain, looking for carrion.”
carrion is dead flesh.
Anglo-Norman caroigne comes from Latin caro, flesh. Carnal and carnivore are relatives.
Proto-Indo-European
*(s)ker-
Old French
charoigne
Anglo-Norman
careine
Middle English
caroyne — corpse, carrion, something disgusting
English, today
carrion
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”)) + -ia. a doublet of crone. The regular modern English form would be carren, carron (this is found dialectally; see similar kyarn); the intervening is either a hypercorrection based on the analogy of words like merlin/merlion or, more likely, represents metathesis of the last element of the diphthong in caroyne. The adjective is derived from the noun.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA