fœtal

fœtal (not comparable)

1. Dated spelling of fetal.
   • 1851, Herman Melville, Moby-Dick:

     "No wonder, then, that ever gathering volume from the mere transit over the widest watery spaces, the outblown rumors of the White Whale did in the end incorporate with themselves all manner of morbid hints, and half-formed fœtal suggestions of supernatural agencies, which eventually invested Moby Dick with new terrors unborrowed from anything that visibly appears."

• folate, of late

From fœtus with the suffix -al.

• IPA^(key): /fe.tal/

fœtal (feminine fœtale, masculine plural fœtaux, feminine plural fœtales)

1. fetal

• “fœtal”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.