whale

¹ American  

[weyl, hweyl] / weɪl, ʰweɪl /

noun

whales, plural whale plural

1. any of the larger marine mammals of the order Cetacea, especially as distinguished from the smaller dolphins and porpoises, having a fishlike body, forelimbs modified into flippers, and a head that is horizontally flattened.

2. Informal. something big, great, or fine of its kind.

   I had a whale of a time in Europe.

   Programming this game turned out to be a whale of a project.

3. Also called crypto whale.  an investor who holds a large amount of cryptocurrency and is therefore able to create noticeable effects on the market, as by influencing prices through large transactions or by reducing the amount of available cryptocurrency through failure to move their holdings.

   The recent accumulation of this cryptocurrency by whales may indicate that they expect it to see significant gains in the near future.

4. Astronomy. Whale, the constellation Cetus.

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verb (used without object)

whaled, whaling

1. to engage in whaling or whale fishing.

2. Digital Technology. to phish by 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.

   When she demonstrated her project, “How to Whale and Make Millions,” they didn’t know whether to award her or arrest her!

verb (used with object)

whaled, whaling

1. Digital Technology. to make (a company’s employee or department) a phishing victim by posing as an entity authorized to procure money or confidential information from the company.

   Before proving he had been whaled, the marketing VP was subjected to much scrutiny and suspicion.

whale ² American  

[hweyl, weyl] / ʰweɪl, weɪl /

verb

whaled, whaling

1. to hit, thrash, or beat soundly.

   Back then, if we misbehaved, Dad would threaten to whale us.

   We took advantage of the other team where they were weakest and whaled the stuffing out of them.

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verb phrase

1. whale (away) at / on

   1. to work vigorously and continuously at or on.

      It was cool to see this bunch of talented writers whaling away on their screenplay.

      I remember whaling at code over and over, pretty much at random, until I found something that sort of worked.

   2. to strike with furious and repeated blows.

      Satisfying as it was to whale on the punching bag, it did little to restore my emotional balance.

      In the last round, he pinned his opponent in the corner and was whaling away at him with both hands.

   3. to criticize vehemently.

      When hostile people are whaling on your ideas, it’s easy to feel humiliated and angry.

      Now all the political pundits are whaling away at the president for neglecting the military.

   4. to play (an instrument) with abandon.

      There was a jazz musician in the corner of the bar, whaling away at the piano.

      He and his band whaled on their instruments with their whole bodies—it was amazing!

whale ¹ British  

/ weɪl /

noun

1. any of the larger cetacean mammals, excluding dolphins, porpoises, and narwhals. They have flippers, a streamlined body, and a horizontally flattened tail and breathe through a blowhole on the top of the head

2. any cetacean mammal See also toothed whale whalebone whale

3. slang a gambler who has the capacity to win and lose large sums of money in a casino

4. informal an exceptionally large, fine, etc, example of a (person or thing)

   we had a whale of a time on holiday

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whale ² British  

/ weɪl /

verb

1. (tr) to beat or thrash soundly

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• whale
  plural
• whales
  plural

Etymology

Origin of whale¹

First recorded before 900; Middle English; Old English hwæl; cognate with German Wal- in Walfisch, Old Norse hvalr; akin to Latin squalus, a kind of fish; 2005–10 whale ¹ for defs. 6, 7 (from the consideration of the victim as a “big fish/phish”)

Origin of whale²

First recorded in 1780–90; origin uncertain

Explanation

A whale is a large mammal that lives in the ocean. Whales need to breathe air periodically, and the blowholes on their heads help them do this. Blue whales are the largest animals that ever lived — they're even bigger than the largest dinosaurs were! The Old English root of whale means both "whale" and "walrus," although these two marine animals are quite different from each other. While some whales grow to be only ten feet long, many whales are enormous. The informal phrase "a whale of a" comes from the idea that whales are impressive, and you can use it for things (or people) that really distinguish themselves: "Wow, this is a whale of a party!"

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

whale whales whaled whaling

From 1999 through 2020, FAU Harbor Branch responded to 59 pygmy sperm whale strandings.

From Science Daily ● Jul. 21, 2026

From Maine comes a bone from the endangered North Atlantic right whale.

From Barron's ● Jul. 2, 2026

While the afternoons blazed, Tim sailed Melville’s waves of prose, alert to the rumble of an epic whale beneath their surface.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 25, 2026

“We had increased whale entanglements because the whales, again, are closer to shore, they’re coming into contact with more ships and more fishing gear,” Leising said.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 15, 2026

The blue whale has the largest heart, weighing more than a thousand pounds, the size of an average dairy cow.

From "A Heart in a Body in the World" by Deb Caletti

Six beluga whales have arrived at aquariums in the United States after being moved from a closed Canadian marine park that could no longer care for the mammals.

From BBC ● Jul. 22, 2026

The move followed months of planning and veterinary checks, with specialist teams now monitoring the whales as they settle into their new homes.

From BBC ● Jul. 22, 2026

Because pygmy sperm whales are so difficult to study at sea, researchers still do not know how widespread the newly identified bacteria may be or how much they affect the animals over time.

From Science Daily ● Jul. 21, 2026

It’s less well-known that this tendency exists only when the crowd is large and diverse and not dominated by a few whales.

From MarketWatch ● Jul. 13, 2026

“The whales? Sure they do. But you don’t have to worry about those two.”

From "The Wrong Way Home" by Kate O’Shaughnessy

Numbers of these 16-foot-long marine mammals, hunted for their oil, meat, and baleen, had fallen to an estimated low of 1,200 animals in the North Pacific—a heavily whaled region—by the 1960s.

From National Geographic ● Sep. 28, 2023

Today’s blue whales find themselves in a whaled and warming ocean.

From Scientific American ● Jul. 31, 2020

Facing Erin's 7,800-plus yards but massively wide fairways—60 yards in some cases—players whaled away with impunity when typical winds failed to blow.

From Golf Digest ● Jun. 4, 2018

In that bout, both men whaled away and scored two knockdowns apiece before Matthysse knocked out Molina in the 11th round.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 2, 2015

The Indians whaled from canoes before the white man came, and a few Indians, Eskimos, and French Canadians are whaling from canoes to-day.

From All Afloat A Chronicle of Craft and Waterways by Wood, William Charles Henry

The Mentor had set sail from New Bedford, Mass., the whaling capital of the United States, in July 1831, with a complement of 21 men led by Capt. Edward Barnard.

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 20, 2026

Even decades later, the legacy of whaling continues to shape whale populations, affecting not only how many whales exist today but also which males succeed in fathering calves.

From Science Daily ● Mar. 5, 2026

The Browns had a hand in everything from ironmaking and rum distilling to whaling and the slave trade.

From Barron's ● Jan. 28, 2026

California’s gray whales have been considered an environmental success story since the passage of the 1972 Marine Mammal Protection Act and 1986’s global ban on commercial whaling.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 8, 2026

They’d spent long days slogging through the snow, freezing nights in whatever rudimentary shelter they could assemble or in the deserted huts of whaling camps when they were lucky enough to come across them.

From "Six of Crows" by Leigh Bardugo

Related Words

• mammal
• porpoise