common cachalot

plural common cachalots

1. Synonym of sperm whale.

   1 more example

   However that may be, so much is certain, that when Sibbald considered this Cetacean which had only teeth in the lower jaw, and whose very great head contained a large quantity of spermaceti, to be a species different from the common cachalots, as well as from the one stranded in the Firth of Forth, he did so because there was a dorsal fin present, and by no means on account of its supposed great height.

   1866, William Henry Flower, Daniel Frederik Eschricht, Johannes Theodor Reinhardt, Wilhelm Lilljeborg, Recent Memoirs on the Cetacea, Volume 26, page 163

   Synonyms: sperm whale