Plants & CreaturesGreek → English
Odontocete
/oʊˈdɒntəsiːt/noun
A whale, dolphin or porpoise of the group that keeps teeth and hunts by echolocation.
The Greek roots
ὀδούς
odoús
tooth
κῆτος
kêtos
sea monster, whale
Literally: “toothed whale”
The story of the word
The other half of the order is the baleen whales, who traded teeth for a filter. Every odontocete has a single blowhole and a fatty melon in the forehead that focuses its clicks. Kētos gave Latin cetus and the constellation Cetus, and also the name Keto, the sea goddess whose children in Hesiod include the Gorgons.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → scientific coinage → English
- First recorded
- 19th century
Same family
orthodontistcetaceanperiodontalmastodon
In a sentence
The sperm whale is the largest odontocete by a wide margin.
Odontocete hearing runs far above the human range.