Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Any of several baleen whales of the family Balaenopteridae having longitudinal grooves on the throat and a small, pointed dorsal fin, and including the blue whale and the humpback whale.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A finner-whale of the genus Balænoptera, having short flippers, a dorsal fin, and the throat plicated.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Zoöl.) A very large North Atlantic whalebone whale (Physalus antiquorum, or Balænoptera physalus). It has a dorsal fin, and strong longitudinal folds on the throat and belly. Called also razorback.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Any whale with longitudinal skin folds running from below the mouth to the navel, allowing the capacity of the mouth to expand greatly when feeding.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun any of several baleen whales of the family Balaenopteridae having longitudinal grooves on the throat and a small pointed dorsal fin

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[French, from Norwegian rørhval, from Old Norse reydharhvalr : reydhr, rorqual (from raudhr, red; see reudh- in Indo-European roots) + hvalr, whale.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Norwegian røyrkval ("furrow whale"), from Old Norse reyðarhvalr

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Examples

Comments

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  • Hmmmm, no cetaceans list?

    August 12, 2008

  • Oh, there must be one.

    August 12, 2008

  • Just remember, would-be cetacean-list-makers: Moby-Dick is the only valid source of cetacean citations.

    August 12, 2008

  • I'm partial to this list: 1) Join Wordie. 2) List exactly two whale-words.

    3) Revel in satisfaction. Oh yes.

    August 12, 2008

  • ". . .his sailors had torn off a giant rorqual's jaw. . " Gilbert Adair translation of Georges Perec's La Disparition

    August 11, 2010