[originally belonging to the dialect of the Hebrides, and so prob. of Norse origin; perh. f. ON. fúl-l FOUL (referring to the disgusting odor of the bird) + má-r MEW, gull.
That the word is, as commonly said, a transferred use of fulmar, FOUMART, seems unlikely. The Gael. fulmair and the scientific Latin fulmarus are from Eng.]
A sea-bird of the petrel kind (Fulmarus glacialis), about the size of the common gull. Also called fulmar petrel.
1698. M. Martin, Voy. St. Kilda, 55. The Fulmar, in Bigness equals the Malls of the Second Rate.
1742. De Foe’s Tour Gt. Brit., IV. 275. Another Bird … called Fulmar, about the Size of a Moor-hen.
1766. Pennant, Zool. (1768), II. 431. The Fulmar supplies them with oil for their lamps, down for their beds.
1823. Scoresby, Jrnl. Whale Fishery, 125–6. Another, which a harpooner was just about to strike, sank at the moment in a fright, occasioned, not by the approach of the boat, but in consequence of a fulmar’s darting upon its back, and plunging its beak in the skin.
1863. Baring-Gould, Iceland, App., 406. Still and ghost-like in the distance, buoyant Fulmars wing their way, wheeling round with scarce a beat of their wide pinions.
