Word: whale Part of Speech: noun Etymology: Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *(s)kʷálos Proto-Germanic *hwalaz Proto-West Germanic *hwal Old English hwæl Middle English whal English whale From Middle English whal, whale, from Old English hwæl (“whale”), from Proto-West Germanic *hwal, from Proto-Germanic *hwalaz (“whale”) (compare German Wal, Swedish val, Danish and Norwegian Bokmål hval, Norwegian Nynorsk kval; compare also Dutch walvis, West Frisian walfisk, from Proto-Indo-European *(s)kʷálos (“sheatfish”) (compare German Wels, Latin squalus (“big sea fish”), Old Prussian kalis, Ancient Greek ἄσπαλος (áspalos), Avestan 𐬐𐬀𐬭𐬀 (kara, “kind of fish”)). Pronunciation: /ˈweɪl/, /ˈwɛj(ə)l/, /ˈwæɪl/, /ˈweːl/, /ˈʍel/ 1. Any large cetacean, usually with the exclusion of dolphins and porpoises. Example: Near-synonym: baleen (obsolete sense) Example: 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. 2. Any species of Cetacea. Labels: broadly Example: 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. 3. Something, or someone, that is very large. Labels: figuratively Example: It was a whale of a job. […] It took two months, and the fair blush of youth off my cheeks. Example: 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. 4. Something, or someone, that is excellent. Labels: figuratively Example: 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. Example: Busley Crowther in The New York Times called it “a whale of a comedy” even though he couldn't tell the four musicians apart except for Ringo (“the big-nosed one”). 5. A gambler who routinely wagers large amounts of money. Labels: figuratively Example: These are often no-limit games as maximum bets cramp a whale’s style. Example: A handful of the richest whales routinely play for $200,000 a hand. Australian media mogul Kerry Packer not only regularly bets that much, but has plunked down $200,000 bets for the dealer as a form of a tip. 6. An investor who deals with very large amounts of money. Labels: figuratively, informal Example: If the banks knew how big Archegos’s position was, they may have realized other banks were supplying it with the same leverage — and reconsidered the trade. But a set of worrisome regulatory loopholes kept them from detecting this lurking whale. 7. A person who spends large amounts of money on things that are marketed to them. Labels: figuratively Example: Whales are the big spenders who drop huge amounts of money into a game. Example: These different customer groups will be attracted to very different promotions. Your whales might enjoy receiving frequent emails from you and will purchase almost every time. 8. An overweight person (usually a woman) Labels: colloquial, derogatory, figuratively Example: The whale is still snoring. He's a real beauty, the whale. Got this thick curly hair all over his chest and stomach and legs.