• IPA: /wɛlp/
• (wine/whine) IPA: /ʍɛlp/

whelp (plural whelps)

1. A young offspring of a canid (ursid, felid, pinniped), especially of a dog or a wolf, the young of a bear or similar mammal (lion, tiger, seal); a pup, wolf cub.
   • 1596, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, VI.11:

     […] And fared like a furious wyld Beare, / Whose whelpes are ſtolne away, ſhe being otherwhere.

   • 1610–1611, William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: Printed by Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358 ↗, [Act I, scene ii], page 4 ↗, column Pro.}} […] Then was this Iſland / (Saue for the Son, that he^[sic] did littour heere, / A frekelld whelpe, hag-borne) not honour'd with / A humane ſhape.:

     {w

2. (derogatory) An insolent youth; a mere child.
   • July 13, 1713, Joseph Addison, The Guardian

     That awkward whelp with his money bags would have made his entrance.

3. (obsolete) A kind of ship.
4. One of several wooden strips to prevent wear on a windlass on a clipper-era ship.
5. A tooth on a sprocket wheel (compare sprocket and cog).

• French: chiot (dog), louveteau (wolf), louvetelle (wolf)
• German: Welpe, Welpin
• Portuguese: filhote
• Russian: щено́к
• Spanish: cachorro, caduelo, cadillo

whelp (whelps, present participle whelping; past and past participle whelped)

1. (ambitransitive, of she-dog, she-wolf, vixen, etc.) To give birth.

   The bitch whelped.

   The she-wolf whelped a large litter of cubs.

• French: mettre bas
• German: werfen, Junge werfen, jungen, wölfen
• Portuguese: parir
• Russian: щени́ться

1. Alternative form of welp