spermaceti

English

Etymology

From Latin sperma (“sperm”) +‎ Latin cētī (“of the whale”, genitive of cētus).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˌspɜːməˈsiːti/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• (General American) IPA^(key): /spɚməˈsiːti/, /spɚməˈsɛti/, (obsolete, proscribed) /spɚməˈsɪti/

Noun

spermaceti (uncountable)

2. A wax obtained from the head of sperm whales and used to make cosmetics etc.
   • 1851 November 14, Herman Melville, chapter 77, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC:

     Moreover, as that of Heidelburgh was always replenished with the most excellent of the wines of the Rhenish valleys, so the tun of the whale contains by far the most precious of all his oily vintages; namely, the highly-prized spermaceti, in its absolutely pure, limpid, and odoriferous state.

Derived terms

• spermaceti whale
• spermaceti organ

Translations

wax obtained from the head of sperm whale

• Bulgarian: спермацет m (spermacet), китова мас f (kitova mas)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 鯨蠟／鲸蜡 (jīnglà), 鯨腦／鲸脑 (jīngnǎo)

• Finnish: spermaseetti
• German: Walrat m or n, Spermazet n
• Italian: spermaceti (it) m
• Latin: caetaceum n
• Norwegian:

  Nynorsk: kvalrav n, spermasett m

• Ottoman Turkish: اسپرماچت (ispermaçet), بالق نفسی (balık nefesi)
• Polish: spermacet (pl) m, olbrot (pl) m
• Russian: спермаце́т (ru) m (spermacét)
• Spanish: esperma de ballena f, espermaceti m
• Swedish: valrav c
• Tagalog: esperma
• Turkish: ispermeçet (tr), balık nefesi

Further reading

• spermaceti on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Anagrams

• imprecates

French

Noun

spermaceti m (plural spermacetis)

1. spermaceti

Further reading

• “spermaceti”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

Italian

Etymology

From Latin sperma (“sperm”) +‎ Latin cētī (“of the whale”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /sper.maˈt͡ʃɛ.ti/
• Rhymes: -ɛti
• Hyphenation: sper‧ma‧cè‧ti

Noun

spermaceti m

1. spermaceti

Descendants

• → Turkish: ispermeçet

Further reading

spermaceti in Treccani.it – Vocabolario Treccani on line, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana