spermaceti
A wax obtained from the head of sperm whales and used to make cosmetics, etcA wax obtained from the head of sperm whales and used to make cosmetics, etc; humans separate it out from sperm oil.
Translations
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Meaning
1 senses(uncountable)A wax obtained from the head of sperm whales and used to make cosmetics, etc; humans separate it out from sperm oil.
Holonym: sperm oil
Walrat, Spermazet
спермаце́тspermacét
спермаце́тspermacét
- a white waxy substance from oil of the sperm whale
Origin
From Latin sperma (“sperm”) + Latin cētī (“of the whale”, genitive of cētus).From Latin sperma (“sperm”) + Latin cētī (“of the whale”, genitive of cētus).
Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0 · source
Word family
2 related wordsLessons for this word
1 lessons- A1Countable and uncountable nouns — Because it can be uncountable
See also
neighbours in the dictionaryDictionary text adapted from Wiktionary (Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0) and Open English WordNet / Princeton WordNet (CC BY 4.0, WordNet License); shared under CC BY-SA 4.0. Example sentences and recordings are credited where they appear.