Forms: 7 lourey, 8 laurey, lowry, 8–9 loory, luri, lury, 9 loeri, lowrie, 8– lory. [a. Malay lūrī, dial. var. of nūrī, whence the synonym NORY. Cf. F. lori (Buffon).] A name applied to a number of parrot-like birds of brilliant plumage, chiefly bristle-tongued and belonging to the family Loriinæ, found in South-eastern Asia, the Asiatic Archipelago, and Australia. In Cape Colony and Natal applied to a touraco, Turacus albicristatus.
1692. Lond. Gaz., No. 2811/4. An East-India Lourey, Paraquits, and several other outlandish Birds.
1704. trans. Nieuhoff’s Voy. E.-Indies, in Churchill’s Vay., II. 357. The Lory Bird is a Bird as big as a Parrot, but of a much finer Colour.
1731. Albin, Nat. Hist. Birds, I. 13. The Laurey.
1751. G. Edwards, Nat. Hist. Birds, IV. 173. The Long-tailed Scarlet Lory…. It differs principally from the three last foregoing Lories, in being smaller. Ibid., 174. The Lory-Parakeet.
1779. Forrest, Voy. N. Guinea, 112. From Saba and Sao are brought large red loories, also black ones.
1800. Asiat. Ann. Reg., Misc. Tracts, 208/2. The most remarkable birds to be seen in Amboyna are luries.
1810. Southey, Kehama, X. xix. ’Twas Camdeo riding on his lory, ’Twas the immortal Youth of Love.
1812. Anne Plumptre, trans. Lichtenstein’s S. Africa, I. 195. The cuculus persa, a beautiful bird, called by the colonists loeri or luri.
1850. Clutterbuck, Port Phillip, iii. 40. The King Parrot is the most beautiful, and that called the Lowrie is, perhaps, the most docile.
1859. H. Kingsley, G. Hamlyn, xviii. (1894), 147. Flaming lories … fly whistling … through the gloomy forest.
