whaling

[hwey-ling, wey-]

noun

1. the work or industry of capturing and rendering whales; whale fishing.

2. Digital Technology.,  a phishing attempt by someone posing as a company’s attorney, CEO, vendor, or other authorized entity in order to scam a payroll department, corporate executive, etc., out of money or confidential information.

   The source of the whaling gave all appearances of legitimacy and trustworthiness.

whaling

/ ˈweɪlɪŋ /

noun

1. the work or industry of hunting and processing whales for food, oil, etc

adverb

1. informal,  (intensifier)

   a whaling good time

Other Word Forms

• antiwhaling adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of whaling¹

whale ¹ + -ing ¹; whaling def. 1 was first recorded in 1680–90; whaling def. 2 in 2010–15 (in the sense “hunting for a big fish/phish”)

Example Sentences

It had once been a whaling village, and the humble buildings retained a rustic charm, though when Watson arrived the rustic quality was on a steep descent toward ruination.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

The robot’s computer brain retrieved information on the history of whaling, and she calculated the shark’s age to be over five hundred years.

Read more on Literature

Located 30 miles off Cape Cod, Nantucket has transformed over centuries from a whaling port to a wealthy seasonal enclave, where typical homes cost millions of dollars yet many sit empty all winter.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

As a teenager at the docks of Dundee, Shelley would have seen whaling ships just like the ones on display at the museum.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

Scientists around the world will now share and analyse these precious mud samples to work out how human activity - including a century of industrial whaling - affected Antarctica and the rest of our planet.

Read more on BBC

Related Words

• beating 
• blow 
• breakdown 
• collapse 
• debacle 
• destruction 
• drubbing 
• embarrassment 
• failure 
• killing 
• loss 
• massacre 
• rout 
• setback 
• thrashing 
• triumph