walrus

The walrus is, no doubt, a funny-looking animal. It’s got a droopy, hangdog kind of face, grumpy-old-man whiskers, and two ludicrous-looking tusks. (No offense to any walruses who may be reading this.)

So, it seems fitting that walrus also has a funny origin story: it may literally mean “whale-horse.” Well, that’s a theory.

The origins of the word walrus are disputed. In fact, the writer of the famous Lord of the Rings books, J. R. R. Tolkien, came up with no fewer than six different possible origins of the word.

Anyway, even if it’s not entirely true, the story goes that walrus comes from Dutch. Walvis means “whale” and ros means “horse.” Combine it all together and a walrus is a “whale-horse.” Which, if you look at this wonderful animal, seems like a fitting name for it.

The roots of these other words may get a rise—of laughter or surprise—out of you too. Run on over to our roundup of them at “Weird Word Origins That Will Make Your Family Laugh.”

• The walrus’s tusks aren’t just for show: they use them to fend off predators, and the top males are the ones with the longest tusks.
  • You can even tell how old a walrus is based on its tusks.
• Walrus tusks also help tell them apart from the similar animals of seals and sea lions, if these groups of animals confuse you.
• The word walrus only has one L and one S, so watch out for misspelling it as “wallrus” or “walruss.”
  The walrus’s whiskers are so memorable that a person with a droopy moustache is said to have a walrus moustache.

The wal– in walrus shares a background with the whal– in narwhal, an animal that the walrus often shares a habitat with. The wal- in walrus is also related to the word whale, another marine mammal.