1824: walrus Dec 13, 2019

Tolkien was a philologists, and didn't just invent languages, but studied older forms of language, Still, he could not find a definitive etymology for 'walrus'; in fact, he came up with six. It is almost certainly Germanic, but could be anything from the Dutch 'walvis' meaning 'whale' (literally 'whale-fish) to possibly coming a root for 'horse', like the Old Norse 'hrosshvalr' ('horse whale'). There are many more ideas as well, like a compound from Dutch 'wal' (shore) and 'reus' (giant).

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