Moby Dick

American

[moh-bee dik] / ˈmoʊ bi ˈdɪk /

noun

a novel (1851) by Herman Melville.

Moby Dick Cultural

(1851) A novel by Herman Melville. Its central character, Captain Ahab, engages in a mad, obsessive quest for Moby Dick, a great white whale. The novel opens with the famous sentence “Call me Ishmael.”

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.

Those dramatic encounters later inspired Herman Melville's classic novel, Moby Dick.

From Science Daily • Mar. 23, 2026

After we said our goodbyes, I walked the four blocks to Hahn’s Moby Dick, which was built in 1991.

From Los Angeles Times • Jan. 2, 2025

In his 1851 novel Moby Dick, Herman Melville describes right whales as “the most venerable of the leviathans, being the one first regularly hunted by man.”

From National Geographic • Jan. 25, 2024

Lines seem to form all day at Moby Dick, which touts its legacy as White Rock’s go-to fish and chips shop.

From Seattle Times • Jul. 26, 2023

While he was working for the Remington people, there were the news reels of us typing touch system on Moby Dick, the white typewriter with the blind keys.

From "Cheaper by the Dozen" by Frank B. Gilbreth Jr. and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023