Old French

Noun

balaine f ‎(oblique plural balaines, nominative singular balaine, nominative plural balaines)

1. Alternative form of baleine
   • late 12th century, anonymous, La Folie de Tristan de Berne, page 310 (of the Champion Classiques edition of Le Roman de Tristan, ISBN 2-7453-0520-4), lines 157-8:

     Qui t'engendra? — Uns galerous
     — De que t'ot il? — D'une balaine

     — Who is your father? — A walrus
     — Who did he have you with? — A whale (Tristan is deliberately speaking nonsense in this passage in order to pass for a harmless madman)