Roc

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /ɹɒk/

Definitions

1. A legendary giant bird of enormous size and strength featured in Arabian and other mythological traditions
2. A fantastical bird from various mythologies, renowned for its gigantic form and power, often described as able to lift substantial beings or items
3. A colossal bird from legend, famed for its immense size and great strength in ancient myths

Etymology: The roc is a giant bird of Arabian and Persian legend, able to carry off elephants in its talons. The name reached English through Arabic and Persian sources, and the bird's most famous appearance in the West is in "The Arabian Nights," where Sinbad is carried away by one. Its name has a long history in the Middle East, though the Arabic and Persian forms it passed through are not easily traced to a single shared root with certainty. Sources for the English form point to the Arabic word "rukh" and the Persian "rukh," and the bird appears in medieval travellers' accounts that described it as enormous enough to darken the sun when it flew overhead. Such stories circulated along trade routes and reached Europe through translations and travel writing. Early English writers treated the roc as a real creature of distant lands, and it became a standard image of wonder in later storytelling. Marco Polo's account of a giant bird from Madagascar, which he attributed to the roc, shows how the name was attached to reports of unfamiliar animals.