Crossword clues for narwhal
narwhal
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Narwhal \Nar"whal\ (n[aum]r"hw[.a]l), n. [Sw. or Dan. narvhal; akin to Icel. n[=a]hvalr, and E. whale. the first syllable is perh. from Icel. n[=a]r corpse, dead body, in allusion to the whitish color its skin. See Whale.] [Written also narwhale and narwal.] (Zo["o]l.) An arctic cetacean ( Monodon monocerous), about twenty feet long. The male usually has one long, twisted, pointed canine tooth, or tusk, projecting forward from the upper jaw like a horn, whence it is called also sea unicorn, unicorn fish, and unicorn whale. Sometimes two horns are developed, side by side.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
1650s, from Danish and Norwegian narhval, probably a metathesis of Old Norse nahvalr, literally "corpse-whale," from na "corpse" + hvalr "whale" (see whale). So called from resemblance of its whitish color to that of dead bodies. The first element is from PIE *nau- (1) "death; to be exhausted" (cognates: Old English ne, neo, Gothic naus "corpse," Old Cornish naun, Old Church Slavonic navi, Old Prussian nowis "corpse," Lettish nawe "death," Lithuanian novyti "to torture, kill").
Wiktionary
n. ''Monodon monoceros'', an Arctic cetacean that grows to about 20 feet (6 meters) long, the male having a single horn-like tusk, a twisted, pointed canine tooth that projects forward.
WordNet
Wikipedia
The narwhal, or narwhale (Monodon monoceros), is a medium-sized toothed whale that possesses a large " tusk" from a protruding canine tooth. It lives year-round in the Arctic waters around Greenland, Canada, and Russia. It is one of two living species of whale in the Monodontidae family, along with the beluga whale. The narwhal males are distinguished by a long, straight, helical tusk, which is an elongated upper left canine. The narwhal was one of many species described by Carl Linnaeus in his publication Systema Naturae in 1758.
Like the beluga, narwhals are medium-sized whales. For both sexes, excluding the male's tusk, the total body size can range from ; the males are slightly larger than the females. The average weight of an adult narwhal is . At around 11 to 13 years old, the males become sexually mature; females become sexually mature at about 5 to 8 years old. Narwhals do not have a dorsal fin, and their neck vertebrae are jointed like those of other mammals, not fused as in dolphins and most whales.
Found primarily in Canadian Arctic and Greenlandic and Russian waters, the narwhal is a uniquely specialized Arctic predator. In winter, it feeds on benthic prey, mostly flatfish, under dense pack ice. During the summer, narwhals mostly eat Arctic cod and Greenland halibut, with other fish such as polar cod making up the remainder of their diet. Each year, they migrate from bays into the ocean as summer comes. In the winter, the male narwhals occasionally dive up to in depth, with dives lasting up to 25 minutes. Narwhals, like most toothed whales, communicate with "clicks", "whistles", and "knocks".
Narwhals can live up to 50 years. They are often killed by suffocation when the sea ice freezes over. Another cause of fatality, specifically among young whales, is starvation. The current population of the narwhal is about 75,000, so narwhals qualify for Near Threatened under the criterion of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Narwhals have been harvested for over a thousand years by Inuit people in northern Canada and Greenland for meat and ivory, and a regulated subsistence hunt continues.
Narwhal was a whaling ship, a barque which was part of the Arctic fleet between 1883 and 1907.
Usage examples of "narwhal".
Peottre Blackwater accompanied him, his narwhal an ivory carving on a gold chain around his neck.
How then can he offer the head of a creature that does not belong to him as payment to the Blackwater mothershouse of the Narwhal Clan?
The Otter had rebuked Elliania as a daughter of the Blackwater family of the Narwhal Clan.
Was the Blackwater family of the Narwhal Clan intent on kindling war between the Six Duchies and the Out Islands?
It is the pleasure of Clans Boar and Narwhal to provide for you as generously as you did for our folk when we visited your Six Duchies.
Greetings finished, the women of the Narwhal mothershouse led the Prince and his party away.
Two young men wearing the Narwhal badge nodded us past the gate in the wall.
The Narwhal Clan folk parted to make way for us to assume our correct positions.
The people who crowded the rest of the room were almost entirely Narwhal Clan, as evinced by their jewelry, clothing adornments, and tattoos.
The exceptions seemed to be almost entirely males standing alongside women, and were probably men who had married into the clan or were partners in a less formal arrangement with a Narwhal woman.
The only unifying theme to the beaded or embroidered or woven patterns of their dress seemed to be the brightness of the colors and the narwhal motif.
Then four Narwhal clansmen carried a wizened little woman down the stairs and into the hall.
She wore a red robe and the narwhal motif was repeated in tiny ivory buttons sewn all over it.
The Great Mother of the Narwhal Clan leaned forward, her gnarled hands gripping the twisted wood of the chair arms.
Women came to stand around her, and there was a formalized greeting that passed between every woman of the Narwhal Clan and Elliania.