Rorqual

//ˈɹɔɹkwəl// noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    Any whale of family Balaenopteridae, with longitudinal skin folds running from below the mouth to the navel, allowing the capacity of the mouth to expand greatly when feeding.

    "Now then, the biggest whales, those rorqual whales that frequent the waterways of the Aleutian Islands, have never exceeded a length of 56 meters--if they reach even that."

  2. 2
    any of several baleen whales of the family Balaenopteridae having longitudinal grooves on the throat and a small pointed dorsal fin wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
balaenopteridrazorback

Example

More examples

"The Great Rorqual is still more formidable, attaining a length of 120 feet."

Etymology

From Norwegian Nynorsk røyrkval, from Old Norse reyðarhvalr (“fin whale”).

Related phrases

Sibbald's rorquallesser rorqual

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.