† ˈarsefoot Ornith. Obs.
[f. arse n. + foot; on account of its feet being placed so far back.]
A bird; identified by Willoughby with the Great and Little Dabchick, species of the Grebe; by Goldsmith with the Penguin.
| 1598 Florio, Giuero..a bird called a diuer, a didapper, or arsefoote. 1678 Ray Willughby's Ornith. 339 The Greater Loon or Arsfoot, Colymbus major. Ibid. 340 The Didapper, or Dipper, or Dobchick, or small Doucker, Loon, or Arsfoot: Colymbus sive Podicipes minor. 1774 Goldsmith Nat. Hist. (1862) II. vii. vii. 217 Our sailors..give these birds [penguins] the very homely, but expressive, name of arse-feet. |