sb. pl. Zool. [mod.L., f. cētus, a. Gr. κῆτος whale; see -ACEA.]
The order of marine Mammalia containing the whales and their congeners.
1830. Lyell, Princ. Geol., I. 151. The bones of whales and other cetacea.
1833. Sir C. Bell, Hand (ed. 3), 110. In the Cetacea … we have mammalia unprovided with hind feet.
1865. Gosse, Land & Sea (1874), 168. [Foraminifers and Diatoms] constitute the principal sustenance of the giant Cetacea.
