Definition of "solan" []

• See gannet. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "The very pickmaws and solan-geese out-bye yonder at the Bass hae ten times their sense!"
• "Now and again you could see a solan dart down from the blue heavens into the blue of the sea, sending up a spurt of water twenty feet high as he disappeared; and far out there, between the red precipices and the ruffled waters beneath, white sea-fowl flew from crag to crag or dropped down upon the sea to rise and fall with the waves."
• "When that reverenced ascetic went to take up his residence in the wave-bounded solitude of the Farne Islands, he found the solan-geese there imbued with the wild habits common to their storm-nurtured race, and totally unconscious of the civilisation and refinement of their kinsmen who graze on commons, and hiss at children and dogs."