Other forms: dolphins
A dolphin is a very clever, friendly sea animal that jumps out of the water. A pod of dolphins, dolphins following the boat, swim with dolphins.
It is a mammal, breathing air and feeding its young on milk, and it sleeps with half its brain at a time so it can keep surfacing. It hunts by echolocation. The Greek name comes from a word for the womb, marking it as a mammal even then.
1noundolphinA clever sea mammal that leaps from the water.
“A dolphin swam alongside our boat, leaping out of the waves.”
dolphin is a sea mammal.
Greek delphis comes from delphys, the womb — naming the animal as one that bears live young.
Ancient Greek
δελφίς
Latin
delphīnus
Middle English
delphyn
English, today
dolphin
Built from
From Middle English delphyn, from Latin delphīnus, from Ancient Greek δελφίς, from δελφύς (“womb”); the modern form in -ol- is probably influenced by the pronunciation of Middle French dauphin. Compare Swedish delfin. a doublet of dauphin. Displaced native mereswīn, whence English mereswine.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA