hwilpe

• hwilpa

Cognate with Scots whaup and Dutch wulp; possibly related to English yarwhelp.

hwilpe f

1. (hapax legomenon) a kind of bird
   • 10th century, The Seafarer:

     Hwīlum ylfete song dyde iċ mē tō gomene, ganetes hlēoþor ond huilpan swēġ fore hleahtor wera, mǣw singende fore medodrince.

     Sometimes I made the swan song as a mirth to myself, the gannet’s speech and the hwilp’s noise instead of laugher of men, the singing seagull instead of a mead-drink.

This noun is only attested in the oblique form hwilpan, so its gender and lemma form are unclear; hwilpe and hwilpa are equally possible.

• Joseph Bosworth; T. Northcote Toller (1898), “hwilpa”, in An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, second edition, Oxford: Oxford University Press.