Whale Killer Becomes Killer Whale

The animal we call the killer whale is actually not a whale at all but the largest member of the dolphin family, Orcinus orca. In the 16th century, Basque whalers, renowned sailors and hunters from Spain and France's Bay of Biscay, often encountered orcas while hunting large whales in the Atlantic. They watched the black-and-white predators attacking and killing massive whales and nicknamed them "ballena asesina," meaning "whale killer." When the phrase filtered into English, it was mistranslated and flipped around into "killer whale," a label that unfairly made orcas sound like man-eaters rather than cunning hunters of whales.

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