dog whelk
dog whelk noun: a carnivorous European mollusc, Nucella lapillus, found on rocky coasts.
Noun
dog whelk (plural dog whelks)
- A carnivorous European mollusc, Nucella lapillus, found on rocky coasts.
- A recent study of shell-shape in the dog whelk Nucella lapillus along the Bristol Channel suggests - that in progressively less saline conditions the species lives in a colonising situation, where periodic food shortages, rather than physiological limitations, decimate populations and sometimes...1971 January 14, Graham Chedd, Peter Stubbs, Gerald Wick (section editors), Monitor: Starving dog whelks grow teeth in the estuary, New Scientist, Volume 49, Number 734, page 57
- Evidently the dog whelks perceive the chemicals released by the crabs and their prey.[…]Dog whelks are believed to have evolved in the Pacific, and to have spread into the North Atlantic in the Pliocene, during a warm period when it was possible to pass along the coast of the Arctic Ocean.1996, Colin Little, John A. Kitching, The Biology of Rocky Shores, page 144
- Synonyms:
- Atlantic dogwinkle, purple
Synonyms of dog whelk
- Atlantic dogwinkle
- purple
Forms of dog whelk
| plural | dog whelks |
|---|---|
| alternative form | dog-whelk |
| alternative form | dogwhelk |
Questions about dog whelk
- What does dog whelk mean?
- Dog whelk means a carnivorous European mollusc, Nucella lapillus, found on rocky coasts.
- What part of speech is dog whelk?
- Dog whelk is a noun.
- What is the plural of dog whelk?
- The plural of dog whelk is dog whelks.
Words near dog whelk in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: dog whelk (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.
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Cite this entry: “dog whelk.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/dog_whelk. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.