Meaning

Any large cetacean that usually excludes dolphins and porpoises..

Definitions by Sense

1. Any large cetacean that usually excludes dolphins and porpoises.
2. (loosely) Any species of Cetacea.
3. (figuratively) Something, or someone, that is very large.
4. (figuratively, as "whale of a ___") Something, or someone, that is excellent.
5. (gambling, figuratively) A gambler who routinely wagers large amounts of money.
6. (finance, figuratively, informal) An investor who deals with very large amounts of money.
7. (marketing, figuratively) A person who spends large amounts of money on things that are marketed to them.
8. (figuratively, colloquial, derogatory) An overweight person (usually a woman)

Example Sentences

Near-synonym: baleen (obsolete sense)

And God created great whales, and euery liuing creature that moueth, which the waters brought forth aboundantly after their kinde, and euery winged foule after his kinde: and God saw that it was good.

Whale oil was still moderately useful for several things, and whale lives were valueless. Dead whales were used to soften leather and lubricate machines and to somewhat mitigate the effects of trench foot in the first world war.

The dawn of the oil age was fairly recent. Although the stuff was used to waterproof boats in the Middle East 6,000 years ago, extracting it in earnest began only in 1859 after an oil strike in Pennsylvania.[…]It was used to make kerosene, the main fuel for artificial lighting after overfishing led to a shortage of whale blubber.

It was a whale of a job. […] It took two months, and the fair blush of youth off my cheeks.

But when it comes to his business life and business career, Will Clayton is not as other men; he is such a whale of a lot better that it suggests a qualitative as well as a quantitative difference.

Passing the Congregation Shearith Israel on Central Park West (a white whale of a building with a triangular pediment supported by four count ’em four massive Corinthian columns), Professor Solanka scurrying through the downpour remembered the newly bat-mitzvahed thirteen-year-old girl he’d glimpsed through the side door, […]

My own father only wrote one poem in his life as far as I know, but it was a whale of a lyric, the kind you would give your whole life to write, which he did, but that is another story.

Word Forms

• whales
• whaling
• whaled

Synonyms for whale

Related Words

When Should You Use Whale?

Use whale when its meaning, tone and grammar fit the full sentence. A synonym is not always a direct replacement.

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