Word.ws English Dictionary

whelk

/wɛlk/

whelk noun: certain edible sea snails, especially, any one of numerous species of large marine gastropods belonging to Buccinidae, much used as food in Europe.

whelk: certain edible sea snails, especially, any one of numerous species of large marine gastropods...
Image: DanielCD, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun (1)

whelk (plural whelks)

  1. Certain edible sea snails, especially, any one of numerous species of large marine gastropods belonging to Buccinidae, much used as food in Europe.

Noun (2)

whelk (plural whelks)

  1. (archaic) Pimple.
    • his face is all bubukles , and whelks , and knobs1599 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life of Henry the Fift”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount...
  2. A stripe or mark; a ridge; a wale.

whelk meaning in Tamil, Urdu and Vietnamese

whelk in Tamil

உண்ணக்கூடிய, திருகலான ஓடுடைய கடல் கிளிஞ்சல், நத்தை, முகப்பரு, பரு

whelk in Urdu

دانہ, پھنسی

whelk in Vietnamese

edible sea snail of the family Buccinidae
ốc bulot

Synonyms of whelk

Forms of whelk

pluralwhelks
alternative formwelk
alternative formwhilk
alternative form (obsolete)wilk

Origin of whelk

From Middle English whelke, a variant of welk, from Old English weoloc, wiloc, wioloc, weluc, from Proto-West Germanic *weluk (compare Middle Dutch willoc, Dutch wulk), perhaps from Proto-Indo-European *welH- (“to turn, revolve”) (whence vulva and volute). Unetymological spelling with wh- from the 15th century.

From Middle English whelke, from Old English hwelca (“pustule, swelling”).

Words formed from whelk

Phrases with whelk

Words that rhyme with whelk

Questions about whelk

What does whelk mean?
Whelk means certain edible sea snails, especially, any one of numerous species of large marine gastropods belonging to Buccinidae, much used as food in Europe.
What is whelk in Tamil?
Whelk in Tamil is உண்ணக்கூடிய, திருகலான ஓடுடைய கடல் கிளிஞ்சல், நத்தை. See Whelk meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is whelk?
Whelk is a noun.
How do you pronounce whelk?
Whelk is pronounced /wɛlk/.
What is the plural of whelk?
The plural of whelk is whelks.

Words near whelk in the dictionary

  1. Wheldons
  2. Wheldrake
  3. Whelehan
  4. Whelehans
  5. Whelham
  6. whelk
  7. whelk stall
  8. whelk stalls
  9. whelked
  10. whelker
  11. whelkers

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: whelk (page history and authors); whelk (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); whelk (Urdu Wiktionary) (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)-Vealhurl-whelk.wav.

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