From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishalbatrossal‧ba‧tross /ˈælbətrɒs $ -trɒːs, -trɑːs/ noun 1 HBP[countable] a very large white sea bird2 → an albatross (around your neck)
Examples from the Corpus
albatross• Their wingspan exceeds that of an albatross.• You share it with dolphins and whales and albatrosses and the lonely satellite orbiting overhead.• Her youth was a rock round her neck, her albatross.• Given that male albatrosses have the same genetic incentives as male elephant seals, why do they behave so differently?• We identified two different types of albatross, four species of petrel, and a tern.• It was too rough to fish, and our only companions were the albatrosses.• The albatrosses, however, remained.• In the year before Gould's arrival a thousand albatrosses were killed on Albatross Island alone.Origin albatross 1. (1600-1700) Probably from alcatras type of water bird ((16-19 centuries)), from Portuguese or Spanish alcatraz “pelican”, from Arabic al-gattas “the diver”; 2. from the dead albatross that brought bad luck to the sailor who killed it in the poem The Ancient Mariner (1798) by S. T. Coleridge 