bowhead
/ˈbəʊhɛd/noun
bowhead is a noun meaning “A large baleen whale, of species Balaena mysticetus, having a large, rounded head, that inhabits Arctic waters” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled B-O-W-H-E-A-D, and it appears about once in every 13 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of bowhead is bowheads.
What does bowhead mean?
noun
- 1
A large baleen whale, of species Balaena mysticetus, having a large, rounded head, that inhabits Arctic waters.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce bowhead?
- /ˈbəʊhɛd/
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Flame,_not_lame-bowhead.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of bowhead
- bowheads plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is bowhead?
Bowhead appears about once in every 13 million words in written English, the 106,501st most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Bowhead in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense Balaena mysticetus:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | baleine boréale |
| German | Grönlandwal |
| Portuguese | baleia-da-groenlândia |
| Spanish | ballena boreal |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does bowhead come from?
From bow + head.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).