whale

whale (hwāl, wāl)

noun pl. whales or whale

any member of either of two orders (Mysticeta and Odontoceta) of aquatic mammals that breathe air, bear live young, and have front limbs that have been modified into flippers, and a flat, horizontal tail
any of the larger members of these two groups, excluding the porpoises and dolphins (except for the killer whale)

Etymology: ME whal < OE hwæl, akin to OHG hwal, ON hvalr, MDu wal < IE base *(s)kwalos, a large fish > L squalus, big sea fish

intransitive verb whaled, whal′·ing

to engage in the work of hunting whales

a whale of a

☆

Informal an exceptionally large, fine, etc. example of a (class of persons or things)

whale (hwāl, wāl)

transitive verb whaled, whal′·ing

Informal to beat; whip; thrash

Etymology: prob. var. of wale

A marine animal
cetacean, leviathan, King of the Deep; see fish.
Types of whales include: sperm, white, blue, right, Greenland, sulphur-bottom, killer, gray, baleen, bottlenose, beaked, toothed, pilot, narwhal, finback, finner, humpback, beluga, blackfish, rorqual, common rorqual, blue rorqual.
*Something impressive
a great deal, a lot, abundance, a great quantity, large amount, corker*, whopper*, helluva lot*.

Converse of object

strand: The expression stranded whale was not out of place.
migrate: In addition to walrus the marine sanctuary is home to sea lions, seals and migrating gray whales.

Adjective modifier

beaked: News Report The earlier whale washed up on Mull was a beaked whale of a species not known at the time of writing.
toothed: The second most frequently encountered toothed whale was the deep-diving sperm whale.
bottlenose: In an attempt to unravel this apparent mystery, previous accounts of northern bottlenose whales around the Scottish coast are described.
long-finned: Cephalopods form the bulk of the diet of the long-finned pilot whale, but fish and crustaceans are also eaten.
gray: Mel's burning desire was to see the gray whales.
entangled: An entangled whale can survive for a long time if its feeding ability is not impaired, according to Straley.

Modifies a noun

watching: These might include whale watching, snorkeling or horse back riding.
shark: Oh I'd better not dive the whale shark cos the book says I can't.
strandings: Last year, scientists with Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution determined the increased numbers of whale strandings was due to heart failure.
ambergris: Obtained from the liver oil of sharks and from whale ambergris.
sighting: In recent years North Sailing have enjoyed an incredible 98.5 % success rate for whale sightings.
watcher: The bones are huge and our whale watchers thought they were probably from either blue or fin whales.

Noun used with modifier

humpback: The songs were about a mother humpback whale who is about to give birth to her first calf.
baleen: It can record baleen whale calls within an area of up to 50 km around the device.
sperm: Lost Whales For 10 days a pod of five sperm whales has been trapped in the North Sea, seeking a way out.
beluga: Beluga whale in Orkney On Friday 15th July, a beluga or white whale was spotted from a plane east of Westray in Orkney.
sei: We'll also be on the lookout for fin, sperm, humpback and sei whales as well as several other seal species.
bottlenose: The northern bottlenose whale usually lives in deep-sea canyons in the cold temperate seas of the northern North Atlantic.

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