Ahab
Americannoun
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Bible. a king of Israel and husband of Jezebel, reigned 874?–853? b.c. null Achab
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Literature. the captain of the ship Pequod and tragic hero of Melville's Moby Dick, obsessed with the pursuit of the white whale.
noun
Etymology
Origin of Ahab
From Hebrew Aḥʾābh, probably “father's brother”
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
A wise elder compares Hitler to Captain Ahab in “Moby-Dick,” with Germany as his doomed Pequod.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 16, 2026
He was a favorite punching bag of the mainstream media, a slovenly suburban Ahab doomed to fail.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 17, 2025
To my relief, the directors Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin, working with the screenwriter Julia Cox, trace Diana’s mythic roots not just to the naiads, but to zealots like Captain Ahab.
From New York Times ● Nov. 2, 2023
Like some tenured, landlocked Captain Ahab, I spent the entire week maniacally consulting with an equally agitated crew of scholars, undergrads, Cubans, Jubans, journalists, rabbis and one very committed lawyer in Miami.
From Salon ● Jun. 22, 2023
“I promise. Ahab is a good name. And I’m proud of you for knowing it. It’s from a very famous book.”
From "Darius the Great Is Not Okay" by Adib Khorram
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
