balaine

Old French

Noun

balaine f (oblique plural balaines, nominative singular balaine, nominative plural balaines)

  1. Alternative form of baleine
    • late 12th century, anonymous author, “La Folie de Tristan de Berne”, in Le Roman de Tristan, Champion Classiques edition, →ISBN, lines 157–8, page 310:
      Qui t'engendra? — Uns galerous
      — De que t'ot il? — D'une balaine
      — Who is your father? — A walrus
      — Who did he have you with? — A whale (Tristan is deliberately speaking nonsense in this passage in order to pass for a harmless madman)
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