whale

英 [we?l] 美[wel]

CET4TEM4考研CET6中低頻詞核心詞匯哺乳動物

復(fù)數(shù):?whales;

whale 鯨

來自古英語hwael,大型海洋生物，鯨，海象等，后用于指鯨。

whale: whale: [OE] Whale comes from a prehistoric Germanic *khwal-, which also produced Swedish and Danish hval and the wal- of German walfisch ‘whale’. The expression a whale of, meaning ‘no end of’, originated in the USA towards the end of the 19th century.
whale (n.): Old English hw?l "whale," also "walrus," from Proto-Germanic *hwalaz (cognates: Old Saxon hwal, Old Norse hvalr, hvalfiskr, Swedish val, Middle Dutch wal, walvisc, Dutch walvis, Old High German wal, German Wal), from PIE *(s)kwal-o- (cognates: Latin squalus "a kind of large sea fish"). Phrase whale of a "excellent or large example" is c. 1900, student slang. Whale-oil attested from mid-15c.
whale (v.2): "beat, whip severely," 1790, possibly a variant of wale (v.) "to mark with 'wales' or stripes" (early 15c.), from wale (n.). Related: Whaled; whaling.
whale (v.1): "pursue the business of whale-fishing," 1700, from whale (n.). Whale-fishing is attested from 1570s.

1. The blue whale is the largest living thing on the planet.: 藍(lán)鯨是地球上體型最大的生物。

3. Norwegian whalers said yesterday they had harpooned a female minke whale.: 挪威的捕鯨人說昨天他們用捕鯨叉捕獲了一頭雌性小須鯨。

4. Whale-watching has become a growth leisure industry.: 觀鯨業(yè)已經(jīng)成為一個(gè)快速發(fā)展的休閑產(chǎn)業(yè)。