Etymology: Probably < French marabou (1777 with reference to the French part of the island of Santo Domingo (which later became the Republic of Haiti), or earlier), of uncertain origin, perhaps < Portuguese marabá child of a white man and an American Indian woman (1663 or earlier) < Tupi mara'bá.

Etymology: < French marabout kind of wading bird (1820; in French denoting both African and Indian birds: compare note at sense 2), feather of this bird (1821), specific senses of marabout marabout n. The naming of the bird after the holy man originally occurred in Arabic dialect (e.g. Moroccan Arabic mrābiṭ ); compare quot. 1759 at marabout n. 1, and the following:1667 G. Pagni Lettere (1829) 62 Delle Cicogne. Chiamasi la Cicogna in Moresco Bellaregi, e dicono, ch'essa è Mrabt, cioè, santa, e perciò stimano a gran peccato l'ucciderle, o prenderle. The English word is attested in the sense ‘feather of the marabou stork’ a year before the first attestation of the French word as a bird name; this is probably due to the tendency for foreign animal products to be known (through commerce) before the animals themselves, and there is little doubt that French was the intermediary by which the word entered English. The adoption of a spelling without the final -t of the French perhaps reflects borrowing that was primarily in the spoken context rather than through books.