harpoon
noun
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.
harpoons
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pluralof harpoon.plural
The grammatical form denoting more than one person, place, thing, or idea.
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present tense formof harpoon (3rd person singular).present tense
Used to describe things happening now or regularly.
harpoonnouna 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.
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.
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
Cusack and Streeter would team on three other projects that delivered harpoons to the heart.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 6, 2023
Some of his videos highlight antique traps, like a 19th-century wooden trap that is shaped like a rat and shoots harpoons from its eyes, or quicksand traps that suffocate rodents.
From New York Times ● Feb. 27, 2023
When whaling in North America hit its peak in the mid-1800s, hundreds of ships armed with gun-loaded harpoons set off on hunts in the South Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans.
From Salon ● Nov. 3, 2022
And there’s Tyler on his father’s boat, loading the long harpoons aboard and acting wicked cool while his dad, Jack Croft, dumps buckets of ice in the ice hold, getting the boat ready.
From "The Young Man and the Sea" by Rodman Philbrick
