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cachalot

[kash-uh-lot, -loh]
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noun
  1. sperm whale.
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Origin of cachalot

1740–50; < French ≪ Portuguese cacholote, equivalent to cachol(a) pate, noggin (of obscure origin) + -ote augmentative suffix
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018

Examples from the Web for cachalot

Historical Examples

  • If it be the whale-ship, reasoned he, she must have come back in search of the cachalot.

    The Ocean Waifs

    Mayne Reid

  • There were several sharks playing around the tail of the cachalot.

    The Ocean Waifs

    Mayne Reid

  • But it may, perhaps, be significant that a cachalot was stranded off Sark on June 3.

  • Sir W. Flower and many others are of opinion that there is but one species of Cachalot.

  • Spermaceti, the solid waxy body carried round in the Cachalot's head in solution, is a valuable whale-product.

    The New North

    Agnes Deans Cameron

British Dictionary definitions for cachalot

cachalot

noun
  1. another name for sperm whale
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Word Origin

C18: from French, from Portuguese, cachalote, of unknown origin
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012