Word.ws English Dictionary

cachalot

UK/ˈkaʃəlɒt//ˈkæ.ʃəˌloʊ/

cachalot noun: the sperm whale, Physeter macrocephalus.

Noun

cachalot (plural cachalots)

  1. The sperm whale, Physeter macrocephalus.
    • A flexible rib cage facilitates the collapse of the lungs of a diving cachalot (a synonym derived from an old French word for tooth), so reducing the nitrogen uptake which is responsible for decompression sickness in diving humans, while high levels of haemoglobin in the blood and myoglobin in the...2011 September 22, Richard Shelton, “Sheep, pig, whale”, in Times Literary Supplement

Forms of cachalot

pluralcachalots

Origin of cachalot

Borrowed from French cachalot, from Portuguese cachalote, from cachola (“head”) + -ote.

Words formed from cachalot

Questions about cachalot

What does cachalot mean?
Cachalot means the sperm whale, Physeter macrocephalus.
What part of speech is cachalot?
Cachalot is a noun.
How do you pronounce cachalot?
Cachalot is pronounced /ˈkaʃəlɒt/ (UK).
What is the plural of cachalot?
The plural of cachalot is cachalots.

Words near cachalot in the dictionary

  1. cachaca
  2. cachacas
  3. cachaemia
  4. cachaemias
  5. cachaemic
  6. cachalot
  7. cachalote
  8. cachalotes
  9. cachalots
  10. Cachan
  11. Cachapoal

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: cachalot (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Sapaa-cachalot.wav.

Cite this entry: “cachalot.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/cachalot. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.