whale
Part of speech: noun
verb
Morphological type: simple
Topics: business
finance
gambling
games
marketing
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”)).
Inflected forms:
form: whales
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: whales
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: whaling
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: whaled
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: whaled
pos: verb
tags: past
Senses:
gloss: Any large cetacean, usually with the exclusion of dolphins and porpoises.
pos: noun
examples: 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.
gloss: Any species of Cetacea.
pos: noun
tags: broadly
examples: 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.
gloss: Something, or someone, that is very large.
pos: noun
tags: figuratively
examples: 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, […]
gloss: Something, or someone, that is excellent.
pos: noun
tags: figuratively
examples: 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.
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”).
They were having a whale of a time when a very stern looking shop assistant came over to tell them off.
gloss: A gambler who routinely wagers large amounts of money.
pos: noun
tags: figuratively
examples: These are often no-limit games as maximum bets cramp a whale’s style.
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.
The high roller who had the most ferocious reputation for trying to run the business of the casinos where he played, before he died on December 26, 2006, was Kerry Packer. In the casino world, Packer was the Prince of Whales.
gloss: An investor who deals with very large amounts of money.
pos: noun
tags: figuratively
informal
examples: 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.
gloss: A person who spends large amounts of money on things that are marketed to them.
pos: noun
tags: figuratively
examples: Whales are the big spenders who drop huge amounts of money into a game.
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.
[…] gleaned from their activity: one group they dubbed “whales,” the highest-value customers, who bought shave cream and wipes as well as razors; […]
gloss: An overweight person (usually a woman)
pos: noun
tags: colloquial
derogatory
figuratively
examples: 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.
gloss: To hunt for whales.
pos: verb
tags: intransitive
Synonyms: whale
Related words: narwhal
rorqual
walrus
baleen
cachalot
cete
gam
orca
pod
Derived words: Arctic whale
baleen whale
beached whale
beaked whale
belly of the whale
Belly of the Whale
beluga whale
black whale
blue whale
bone whale
bottlenose whale
bowhead whale
Bryde's whale
caaing whale
ca'ing whale
desert whale
Eden's whale
fail whale
false killer whale
finback whale
fin whale
flue whale
gray whale
grey whale
great whale
Greenland whale
have a whale of a time
humpback whale
ice whale
Jupiter whale
killer whale
land whale
melon-headed whale
minke whale
narwhale
narwhal
Omura's whale
piked whale
pike whale
pilot whale
polar whale
pollack whale
pothead whale
pygmy right whale
razorback whale
Rice's whale
right whale dolphin
right whale
Russian whale
scrag whale
sei whale
social whale
spade-toothed whale
sperm whale
spermaceti whale
steeple-top whale
sulfur-bottom whale
sulphur whale
thick as a whale omelette
thrasher whale
thresher whale
toothed whale
toothless whale
unicorn whale
very like a whale
walking whale
whale-backed
whale bacon
whale barnacle
Whale Beach
whaleboat
whalebone
whalebone whale
whale catcher
whale catfish
whale fall
whale fisher
whalefish
whalelike
whale line
whaleling
whalelore
whale louse
whaleman
whalemeat
whale oil
whale-path
whaler
whale-road
whalery
whale safari
whale's guide
whale shark
whaleship
whaleshit
whale shot
whalesong
whalespeak
whale's road
whalesucker
whale's way
whale tail
whale watch
whale watcher
whale watching
whaling
whippo
white whale
wholphin
Translations: