harpoon
Americannoun
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harpoons
plural
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a barbed, spearlike missile attached to a rope, and thrown by hand or shot from a gun, used for killing and capturing whales and large fish.
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Military. Harpoon, a jet-powered, radar-guided U.S. Navy cruise missile with a high explosive warhead designed for use against surface ships and launchable from a surface vessel, submerged submarine, or aircraft.
verb (used with object)
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harpoons,
present (3rd person singular)
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harpooned,
past participle, past
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harpooning
present participle
noun
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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harpoonsimple
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harpoonssimple
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have harpoonedperfect
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has harpoonedperfect
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am harpooningprogressive
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are harpooningprogressive
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is harpooningprogressive
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have been harpooningperfect progressive
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has been harpooningperfect progressive
Past
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harpoonedsimple
-
had harpoonedperfect
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was harpooningprogressive
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were harpooningprogressive
-
had been harpooningperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of harpoon
First recorded in 1590–1600; from Dutch harpoen, ultimately derived from Old French harpon “a clasp, brooch,” equivalent to harp- (from Latin harpē, from Greek: “hook”) + -on diminutive suffix
Explanation
A harpoon is a long spear that's barbed. To harpoon is to strike an animal, like a whale, with a harpoon. If you are Moby Dick, you steer clear of harpoons. There are many weapons people use to hunt, such as guns, knives, and spears. When people hunt sea life such as whales and sharks, they use a type of spear called a harpoon. A harpoon is long like a spear, but it's also barbed, so when it penetrates an animal, it sticks in. The hunter throws the harpoon, and it has a line attached to it — much like a fishing line. Hunting animals in this way is called harpooning.
Vocabulary lists containing harpoon
The Old Man and the Sea
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The Young Man and the Sea
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I Survived the Shark Attacks of 1916
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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.
See Examples For:
A harpoon gun from "Jaws," a jacket worn by "The Terminator," and a "Star Wars" lightsaber hilt and C-3PO head are among the eye-catching items to be sold at auction next month.
From Barron's ● Feb. 25, 2026
A red flag for sure, but it’s not long before Nina is practically loading a harpoon gun with red flags and firing them at her new housemaid, left and right.
From Salon ● Jan. 31, 2026
Additionally, obsessives can view Quint’s harpoon gun and original design specifications for the mechanical sharks built to terrorize Martha’s Vineyard in 1974.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 11, 2025
A stone’s throw from a few lounging sea lions, rusting storage tanks, boilers and beached harpoon boats lay testament to Deception Island’s past as a Norwegian whaling station.
From Seattle Times ● Oct. 13, 2023
I lift it off the pegs, expecting heavy, but the harpoon is light.
From "The Young Man and the Sea" by Rodman Philbrick
Crew members plowed through ice, buzzed vessels attempting to dump nuclear waste, dodged harpoons, and spent almost a week in a Siberian prison.
From Slate ● Jul. 22, 2025
Proposed approaches include snatching debris with a robotic arm, scooping it up with giant nets, attracting it with magnets and spearing it with harpoons.
From Salon ● Apr. 12, 2025
From bone, the hunter-gatherer peoples designed harpoons useful for hunting large marine mammals like whales.
From Textbooks ● Apr. 19, 2023
The researchers found that two mosquito species in their larval stage caught prey by shooting their heads away from their bodies like harpoons, mouths open, and reeling in their victims with a thin neck membrane.
From New York Times ● Oct. 4, 2022
With it she could, like her father, freeze leather and sinew into sleds, spears, and harpoons.
From "Julie of the Wolves" by Jean Craighead George
McLaren did their first runs on medium tyres in the first session to try to save softs for later but it seems to have harpooned Piastri.
From BBC ● Oct. 26, 2024
Reykjavík suspended commercial whaling in June after a government-commissioned report said that it took too long for whales to die after they were harpooned, sometimes hours, in breach of its law on animal welfare.
From Reuters ● Aug. 31, 2023
“The only time a whale gets harpooned is when he surfaces,” Mr. Gottesman said in an interview for this obituary at his firm’s Park Avenue office in 2013.
From New York Times ● Sep. 29, 2022
But probably the biggest white whale I harpooned this year was my fellow New Yorker and the bard of outerborough pride, Mr. William Martin Joel.
From Slate ● Nov. 25, 2020
“Because they fought back when whalers harpooned them. Right in these very waters, actually. Back in the 1800s. Now, the other types of whales? Well, they’d die pretty conveniently once the harpooner stuck ’em.
From "Shouting at the Rain" by Lynda Mullaly Hunt
Near the turn of the 20th century, Maori sailors were recruited onto whaling expeditions for their harpooning expertise.
From New York Times ● Jul. 2, 2021
Speaking about the whale harpooning scene, the corporation said it had been "alerted to a further editorial breach".
From BBC ● Apr. 27, 2018
Staying outside the EU has also let Norway keep harpooning whales, despite strong opposition by the EU.
From Reuters ● Mar. 17, 2016
As it happens, to view Keillor as a dim, benevolent sweetie-pie – a manatee ripe for harpooning – is to be naive in any case: it is to mistake him for his persona.
From The Guardian ● Apr. 10, 2011
“All right. So here you can see us harpooning the whale. Oh, Jesus—here we go! Feel that tug! It’s awesome. Totally awesome. Okay, this is what they call a ‘Nantucket Sleigh Ride.’
From "Feed" by M.T. Anderson
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.
