marabou

Estimated CEFR level: C2 — Proficiency

Estimated from word frequency; not an official CEFR classification.

Definition

noun large African black-and-white carrion-eating stork; its downy underwing feathers are used to trim garments
noun the downy feathers of marabou storks are used for trimming garments

From French marabou, an older spelling of marabout.

It was one o'clock in the morning of the 2d of July when we landed on the soil of Egypt, at Marabou, three leagues to the west of Alexandria. — Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte — Complete, Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
Secretary birds and saddle-billed storks are numerous and keep the snakes down; marabou storks and vultures devour all the carrion and even the filth round the native villages--so the country seems healthy. — The Man Who Did the Right Thing: A Romance, Harry Johnston
It was not for some weeks after the Crawleys' departure that the landlord of the hotel which they occupied during their residence at Paris found out the losses which he had sustained: not until Madame Marabou, the milliner, made repeated visits with her little bill for articles supplied to Madame Crawley; not until Monsieur Didelot from Boule d'Or in the Palais Royal had asked half a dozen times whether cette charmante Miladi who had bought watches and bracelets of him was de retour. — Vanity Fair, William Makepeace Thackeray

marabout, marabou stork, Leptoptilus crumeniferus

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