orca

[awr-kuh] /ˈɔr kə/
noun
1.
the killer whale, Orcinus orca.
Origin
1865-70; < Neo-Latin, Latin; see orc
Examples from the web for orca
  • And the reason, oddly enough, has to do with orca whales.
  • Three marine-mammal experts and two former orca trainers also joined the suit.
  • The paddle adventure meanders through orca, porpoise and whale watching corridors and into quiet coves that teem with wildlife.
  • Up-close encounters with icebergs, orca and humpback whales and seabirds are common.
  • orca populations in other parts of the world have not been as well studied.
British Dictionary definitions for orca

orca

/ˈɔːkə/
noun (pl) orcas, orca
1.
a killer whale
Word Origin
C20: Latin
Word Origin and History for orca
n.

"killer whale," introduced as a generic term for the species by 1841, from earlier use in scientific names, from Latin orca "cetacean, a kind of whale." Earlier in English, orc, ork "large whale" (c.1590), from French orque, had been used vaguely of sea monsters (see orc).

orca in Technology


Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, 1986. Similar to Modula-2, but with support for distributed programming using shared data objects, like Linda. A 'graph' data type removes the need for pointers. Version for the Amoeba OS, comes with Amoeba. "Orca: A Language for Distributed Processing", H.E. Bal bal@cs.vu.nl et al, SIGPLAN Notices 25(5):17-24 (May 1990).