Word.ws English Dictionary

whippo

UK/ˈwɪpəʊ/US/ˈwɪpoʊ/

whippo noun: any member of the suborder Whippomorpha, including whales and hippopotamuses.

Noun

whippo (plural whippos)

  1. (colloquial) Any member of the suborder Whippomorpha, including whales and hippopotamuses.
    • I hasten to point out that the molecular data sets supporting the "whippo" clade are frought with problems, many of which are currently being addressed by several high-caliber systematists, and so we may not have heard the last word on this issue.1999 August 31, <cbrochu@fmppr.fmnh.org>, “Hippos with time machines.”, in sci.bio.paleontology (Usenet), via Google Groups
    • The whippo lineage may have developed a watery lifestyle even before the hippos and whale branches diverged.1999 November, Richard Monastersky, “The Whale's Tale: Searching for the landlubbing ancestors of marine mammals”, in Science News, volume 156, number 19, →DOI, →ISSN, page 298
  2. (colloquial) A hypothetical common ancestor between whales and hippopotamuses.
    • As an example of this confusion, transitional forms are not to be sought between equally derived living whales and their closest living relatives, the hippos. We do not search for "whippos."2012, Keith B. Miller, “Countering Common Misconceptions of Evolution in the Paleontology Classroom”, in Margaret M. Yacobucci, Rowan Lockwood, editors, The Paleontological Society Special...
    • The "whippo" is a problem for evolutionists on at least two counts: hippos are plant eaters, not meat eaters; all cetaceans are carnivores[.]2015, Olufemi Emmanuel Dokun-Babalola, Evolution: What Dawkins Did Not Tell You: A Riposte to the Book 'The greatest Show on Earth', Strategic Book Publishing and Rights Co, via Google Books, →ISBN

Examples of whippo in a sentence

  • Molecular analyses also support a closer relationship of ‘whippos’ to ruminants than to pigs or camels (Fig. 2.9), a clade named Cetruminantia (e.g., Hassanin et al. 2012).2016, Faysal Bibi, Grégoire Métais, “Eviolotionary History of the Large Herbivores of South and Southeast Asia (Indomalayan Realm)”, in...
  • The school stood where once roamed the Hell Pig, an extinct entelodont with ancestral affinities to "whippos"—the common ancestors of whales and hippos.2021, Charles R. Ault Jr., Beyond Science Standards: Play, Art, Coherence, Community, London: Rowman & Littlefield, via Google Books...

Synonyms of whippo

Forms of whippo

pluralwhippos

Origin of whippo

Blend of whale + hippo, reportedly coined by John Gatesy et al. in 1996.

Words that rhyme with whippo

Questions about whippo

What does whippo mean?
Whippo means any member of the suborder Whippomorpha, including whales and hippopotamuses.
How do you use whippo in a sentence?
Molecular analyses also support a closer relationship of ‘whippos’ to ruminants than to pigs or camels (Fig. 2.9), a clade named Cetruminantia (e.g., Hassanin et al. 2012).
What part of speech is whippo?
Whippo is a noun.
How do you pronounce whippo?
Whippo is pronounced /ˈwɪpəʊ/ (UK).
What is the plural of whippo?
The plural of whippo is whippos.

Words near whippo in the dictionary

  1. whipple-tree
  2. whipple-trees
  3. Whipples
  4. whippletree
  5. whippletrees
  6. whippo
  7. whippomorph
  8. whippomorphan
  9. whippomorphans
  10. whippomorphs
  11. whippoorwill

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: whippo (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: “whippo.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/whippo. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.