MEANING
1. A marine snail with a strong, coiled shell, including several kinds gathered as food.
2. To gather whelks from the shore or sea, usually for food.
Use it for
identifying a large spiral sea-snail shell; describing edible snails gathered along a coast; distinguishing a whelk from a two-shelled musselNames a marine snail with a substantial coiled shell and preserves the established harvesting verb. Writing functions: Marine snail / Gathering shellfish.
Words that belong together
- a whelk shell
- edible whelks
- a basket of whelks
On the page
A whelk moved slowly across the wet sand.
The empty whelk shell lay with its spiral half buried.
They went whelking along the exposed shore before breakfast.
He whelked there as a boy, carrying his catch in a small pail.
Word forms
- Base
- whelk
- Past tense
- whelked
- Past participle
- whelked
- Present participle
- whelking
Usage notes
Countable noun: whelk, whelks. Less common intransitive harvesting verb: whelk, whelks, whelked, whelking; will whelk. Register: neutral. Commonness: uncommon in general English; familiar in some coastal and food contexts (dictionary-informed qualitative editorial estimate; not a measured frequency).
Practice this word in a sentenceYour margin notes
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