whelk
1 Americannoun
noun
noun
noun
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of whelk1
before 900; late Middle English, aspirated variant of Middle English welk, Old English weoloc
Origin of whelk2
before 1000; Middle English whelke, Old English hwylca, hwelca; akin to wheal
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
But the whelk is a cold-water species, and a marine heatwave in 2022 triggered a mass die-off of these snails in the Thames Estuary.
From BBC ● Aug. 10, 2025
They’ve placed 10,000 bags of oysters and whelk shells there since 2015.
From Seattle Times ● Aug. 28, 2022
In the 1990s, the population of horseshoe crabs along the East Coast was decimated by fishermen who used them as bait to catch eel and corner the lucrative market for whelk or conch.
From Washington Post ● Jul. 30, 2021
Were I running a modestly sized whelk stall, let alone the White House, the very last person I would allow behind the scenes to observe and report on its secrets would be Michael Wolff.
From The Guardian ● Jan. 7, 2018
Beads manufactured from the Quahang or whelk, a shell-fish formerly abounding on our coasts, but lately of more rare occurrence of two colors, black and white; the former twice the value of the latter.
From Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete by Washington Irving
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
