WALRUS

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does walrus mean? 

• WALRUS (noun)
  The noun WALRUS has 1 sense:

1. either of two large northern marine mammals having ivory tusks and tough hide over thick blubber

  Familiarity information: WALRUS used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• WALRUS (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Either of two large northern marine mammals having ivory tusks and tough hide over thick blubber

Classified under:

Nouns denoting animals

Synonyms:

sea horse; seahorse; walrus

Hypernyms ("walrus" is a kind of...):

pinnatiped; pinniped; pinniped mammal (aquatic carnivorous mammal having a streamlined body specialized for swimming with limbs modified as flippers)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "walrus"):

Atlantic walrus; Odobenus rosmarus (a walrus of northern Atlantic and Arctic waters)

Odobenus divergens; Pacific walrus (a walrus of the Bering Sea and northern Pacific)

Holonyms ("walrus" is a member of...):

genus Odobenus; Odobenus (type genus of the Odobenidae: walruses)

 Context examples 

“Winters used walrus skins on his hut,” I said.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

The DNA showed that, during the last Ice Age, the Atlantic walrus divided into two ancestral lines, which researchers term “eastern” and “western”.

(Lost Norse of Greenland fuelled the medieval ivory trade, ancient walrus DNA suggests, University of Cambridge)

“Norse Greenlanders needed to trade with Europe for iron and timber, and had mainly walrus products to export in exchange,” said Barrett, lead author of the study.

(Over-hunting walruses contributed to the collapse of Norse Greenland, University of Cambridge)

The presence of walruses in Iceland in the past and their apparent disappearance as early as the Settlement and Commonwealth periods (A.D. 870–1262) have long puzzled biologists.

(Extinction of Icelandic walrus coincides with Norse settlement, National Science Foundation)

Walruses of the eastern lineage are widespread across much of the Arctic, including Scandinavia.

(Lost Norse of Greenland fuelled the medieval ivory trade, ancient walrus DNA suggests, University of Cambridge)

The researchers also studied traces of “manufacturing techniques” – changing styles of butchery and skull preparation – to help place the walrus remains in history.

(Over-hunting walruses contributed to the collapse of Norse Greenland, University of Cambridge)

Walrus ivory was once a luxury in high demand and was widely traded in the Viking Age and across Medieval Europe.

(Extinction of Icelandic walrus coincides with Norse settlement, National Science Foundation)

However, they note that it is hard to find evidence of walrus ivory imports to Europe that date after 1400.

(Lost Norse of Greenland fuelled the medieval ivory trade, ancient walrus DNA suggests, University of Cambridge)

Recent research revealed that Greenland might have been settled only after Icelandic walruses were hunted to exhaustion.

(Over-hunting walruses contributed to the collapse of Norse Greenland, University of Cambridge)

Scientists used ancient DNA analyses and carbon-14 dating to demonstrate the past existence of a unique population of Icelandic walrus that went extinct shortly after Norse settlement some 1,100 years ago.

(Extinction of Icelandic walrus coincides with Norse settlement, National Science Foundation)