Other forms: whales
A whale is the biggest animal in the sea, and it breathes air through a hole. A blue whale, whale watching, whale song.
The blue whale is the largest animal that has ever lived, larger than any dinosaur. Whales are mammals: they breathe air, are warm-blooded and feed their young milk. Whale song travels for hundreds of miles under water. Note that the word is Old English and Germanic and has barely changed.
1nounwhaleA very large sea mammal that breathes through a blowhole.
“From the boat we watched a whale come up for air and dive again.”
whale is an animal.
Old English hwael is a Germanic word for the animal. German Wal and Swedish val are the same word.
Middle English
whal
English, today
whale
From Middle English whal. From Middle English whal, whale, from Old English hwæl (“whale”), from Proto-West Germanic hwal, from Proto-Germanic hwalaz (“whale”) (compare German Wal, Swedish val, Danish and Norwegian Bokmål hval, Norwegian Nynorsk kval; compare also Dutch walvis, West Frisian walfisk, from Proto-Indo-European (s)kʷálos (“sheatfish”) (compare German Wels, Latin squalus (“big sea fish”), prg kalis, Ancient Greek ἄσπαλος, ae 𐬐𐬀𐬭𐬀 (“kind of fish”)).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA