whelk

• welk, whilk
• (obsolete) wilk

• IPA^(key): /wɛlk/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

• (without the wine–whine merger) IPA^(key): /hwɛlk, wɛlk/
• Rhymes: -ɛlk

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.^[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.

• scungilli

• Asian rapa whelk
• dog whelk
• knobbed whelk
• veined rapa whelk
• whelk stall

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

whelk (plural whelks)

1. (archaic) Pimple.
   • 1599 (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, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene v]:

     his face is all bubukles , and whelks , and knobs

2. A stripe or mark; a ridge; a wale.

• chin whelk

• whelk on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Buccinidae on Wikispecies.Wikispecies
• Category:Buccinidae on Wikimedia Commons.Wikimedia Commons