Meaning

noun large marine snail much used as food in Europe

noun large carnivorous marine gastropods of coastal waters and intertidal regions having a strong snail-like shell

verb gather whelk

originFrom Middle English whelke, a variant of welk, from Old English weoloc, wiloc, wioloc, weluc, from Proto-West Germanic *weluk (compare Middle Dutch willoc, Dutch wulk), perhaps from Proto-Indo-European *welH- (“to turn, revolve”) (whence vulva and volute). Unetymological spelling with wh- from the 15th century.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0