any of numerous species of seabirds, such as albatrosses, shearwaters, fulmars, and storm petrels, with thick plumage, webbed feet, a hooked bills, and distinctive tubular nostrils, which. They characteristically fliesy far from land, and comes ashore only to breed: order Procellariiformes
alteration of earlier pitteral, perhaps a nickname for Peter. The link with Peter may have come about because of the supposed similarity between the storm petrel flying low with its legs dangling, appearing to walk on the surface of the ocean while feeding, and Saint Peter's walking on the Sea of Galilee (Matthew 14:29)