dolphin
noun
Simple meaning
A carnivorous aquatic mammal in one of several families of the infraorder Cetacea, famed for its intelligence and occasional willingness to approach humans.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
dahlfuhnSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈdɑlfən
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
A carnivorous aquatic mammal in one of several families of the infraorder Cetacea, famed for its intelligence and occasional willingness to approach humans.
A fish, the mahi-mahi or dorado, Coryphaena hippurus, with a dorsal fin that runs the length of the body, also known for iridescent coloration.
Any of various small toothed whales with a beaklike snout; larger than porpoises
Tursiops truncatus, (Atlantic bottlenose dolphin) the most well-known species.
heraldry
A depiction of a fish, with a broad indented fin, usually embowed.
A member of an athletic team called the Dolphins, such as the Miami Dolphins and teams of various institutions of learning.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A carnivorous aquatic mammal in one of several families of the infraorder Cetacea, famed for its intelligence and occasional willingness to approach humans.
Used this way, dolphin is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use dolphin
- “A playful dolphin jumped high out of the clear ocean water.”
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.