wikipedia|orca
Image:Killerwhales jumping.jpg|thumb|A killer whales (orcas) jumping
English
Noun
killer whale
- A sea mammal, Orcinius orca, related to dolphins and porpoises.
#* 1851 Of this whale, little is known to the Nantucketer, and nothing at all to the professed naturalist. From what I have seen of him at a distance, I should say that he was about the bigness of a grampus. He is very savage - a sort of Feegee fish. He sometimes takes the great Folio whales by the lip and hangs there like a leech until the mighty brute is worried to death. The killer is never hunted. I have never heard what sort of oil he has. Exception might be taken to the name of this whale, on the grounds of its indistinctness. For we are all killers on land and on sea; Bonaparts and sharks included. — Herman Melville: Moby Dick. This ed. 1961 Arnot publishers. p.127.
Synonyms
orca
Translations
trans-top|A sea mammal, Orcinius orca
Croatian: kit ubojica m, orka f
Bulgarian: ко�а�ка f
Dutch: orka m
Finnish: miekkavalas
French: épaulard m, orque f
Hungarian: kardszárnyú delfin
Icelandic: háhyrningur m
Italian: orca f
Neapolitan: ncroja f
Norwegian: spekkhogger m
trans-mid
Japanese: ���� (sakamata), 鯱 (���, shachi)
Polish: orka f
Portuguese: baleia-assassina f
Russian: ко�а�ка (kosátka) f
Seri: tacj queemtax
Spanish: orca f
Tamil: திமி��ளம� (Thimingalam)
trans-bottom
Category:English misnomers
Category:English words affected by prescriptivism
Category:Mammals
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