From The Old Man and the Sea "Ay ," he said aloud. There is no translation for this word and perhaps it is just a noise such as a man might make, involuntarily, feeling the nail go through his hands and into the wood. "Galanos," he said aloud. He had seen the second fin now coming up behind the first and had identified them as shovel-nosed sharks by the brown, triangular fin and the sweeping movements of the tail. They had the scent and were excited and in the stupidity of their great hunger they were losing and finding the scent in their excitement But they were closing all the time. Galanos = a Spanish word for a type of shark

No it is a loanword from Spanish ,you will find many of such loanwords in literal works of Hemingway and other renowned authors. Just google such words and don't look them up in an English dictionary ,because you might not find them there.

'galanos' is a Spanish word, contextually part of Cuban Spanish. http://www.wordmagicsoft.com/dictionary/es-en/galanos.php In this case it means 'mottled', and is used to describe a type of fish. The fact that in most editions of The Old Man and the Sea, galanos is in italics is a clue that the word is not English - many style guides recommend that foreign words be italicised as a warning to the reader.

Could you give us the sentence please? It's not possible to answer this without context. Often the context gives you the meaning. ;)