Plural of carrion; the dead and decaying flesh of animals, or birds and beasts that feed on dead animals.
From Old French 'caroigne,' from Latin 'caro' (flesh). The word carried its association with decay and death from Latin through Old French into English by the 12th century.
Carrion birds like vultures were so efficient at cleaning up dead animals that some cultures revered them as sanitation workers—in Zoroastrianism, leaving bodies for vultures was actually a sacred practice.
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