Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use whale in a sentence

40 example sentences · noun, verb

Whale means any large cetacean, usually with the exclusion of dolphins and porpoises. Example: “For quotations using this term, see Citations:whale.”

Examples of whale by meaning

nounAny large cetacean, usually with the exclusion of dolphins and porpoises.

  • Whale oil was still moderately useful for several things, and whale lives were valueless.2025 September 11, Kate Marvel, “‘We’ve done it before’: how not to lose hope in the fight against ecological disaster”, in The Guardian

nounSomething, or someone, that is very large.

  • But when it comes to his business life and business career, Will Clayton is not as other men; he is such a whale of a lot better that it suggests a qualitative as well as a quantitative difference.1947 May 19, John Chamberlain, “Will Clayton and his Problem”, in Life, page 120

nounSomething, or someone, that is excellent.

  • Busley Crowther in The New York Times called it “a whale of a comedy” even though he couldn't tell the four musicians apart except for Ringo (“the big-nosed one”).2006, June Skinner Sawyers, Read the Beatles: Classic and New Writings on the Beatles, Their Legacy, and Why They Still Matter, Penguin...
  • They were having a whale of a time when a very stern looking shop assistant came over to tell them off.2013, Fred Holtby, Chris Lovie, ROWDY - THE STORY OF A POLICE DOG, Lulu.com, →ISBN, page 105

nounA gambler who routinely wagers large amounts of money.

  • These are often no-limit games as maximum bets cramp a whale’s style.2003, Jeff Wuorio, How to Buy and Sell (Just About) Everything
  • A handful of the richest whales routinely play for $200,000 a hand.2004, Norm Clarke, Vegas Confidential: Norm! Sin City's Ace Insider 1,000 Naked Truths, Hot Spots and Cool Stuff
  • In the casino world, Packer was the Prince of Whales.2008, Deke Castleman, Whale Hunt in the Desert

nounAn investor who deals with very large amounts of money.

  • But a set of worrisome regulatory loopholes kept them from detecting this lurking whale.2021 May 18, Alexis Goldstein, “These Invisible Whales Could Sink the Economy”, in The New York Times, →ISSN

nounA person who spends large amounts of money on things that are marketed to them.

  • Whales are the big spenders who drop huge amounts of money into a game.2015, Jamie Madigan, Getting Gamers: The Psychology of Video Games and Their Impact on the People who Play Them
  • Your whales might enjoy receiving frequent emails from you and will purchase almost every time.2015, Omer Artun, Dominique Levin, Predictive Marketing: Easy Ways Every Marketer Can Use Customer Analytics and Big Data, John Wiley &...

verbTo thrash, to flog, to beat vigorously or soundly.

  • For quotations using this term, see Citations:whale.
  • They beat him down and kept whaling him after he was flat.2004, Steve Frazee, Voices in the Hill, →ISBN

More sentences with whale

  • They gave me the book about whales. That I've not yet read.From the entry that
  • There’s nothing more thrilling to the whale watcher than to see a whale surface and blow.From the entry blow
  • I carved the piece of driftwood into a sculpture of a whale.From the entry into
  • The spoutings of a large whale can be seen from a great distance.From the entry spouting
  • We had a whale of a time at the party Saturday night.From the entry have a whale of a time
  • It being the case that all mammals breathe air, it follows that whales must breathe air.From the entry be the case
  • The team came to the rescue of a whale in need.From the entry in need
  • Hunting that whale takes most of his free time.From the entry take
  • Whales feed on tiny plankton drifting in the ocean.From the entry plankton
  • The whale sounded and eight hundred feet of heavy line streaked out of the line tub before he ended his dive.From the entry sound
  • The whale was washed up on the beach.From the entry wash up
  • Innit dolphins are a type of whale?From the entry innit
  • A female blue whale may produce a specific power of up to 16 kilowatts per tonne when travelling fast.From the entry specific power
  • The sperm whale is a toothed whale.From the entry toothed
  • A whale is, loosely, maybe very loosely, a fish.From the entry loosely
  • The kids had decided to whale away on some pumpkins with baseball bats; it held their interest for a little while.From the entry whale away
  • The tour promised spiritual experiences with humpback whales and other cetaceans, but all we saw were seagulls and a dead sea otter.From the entry cetacean
  • Sperm whales and dolphins are odontocetes.From the entry odontocete
  • Whales and sturgeons are royal fish.From the entry royal fish
  • The drones recorded three instances of sperm whales engaging in head ramming behavior.2026 April 13, Beth Wegerer, “Scientists Finally Catch Sperm Whales Headbutting on Camera”, in A-Z Animals. From the entry head ramming
  • We now need to make coal-­ and gas-­fired power plants go the way of whale oil.2025 September 11, Kate Marvel, “‘We’ve done it before’: how not to lose hope in the fight against ecological disaster”, in The Guardian. From the entry go the way of
  • We hypothesize that allokelping is a cultural behavior unique to southern resident killer whales.2025 June 23, Michael N. Weiss, Rachel E. John, Alondra M. Caro-Ruiz, David K. Ellifrit, Charli A. Grimes, Taylor A. Redmond, Arlene A.…. From the entry allokelping
  • This so-called single-stage-to-orbit model has been the white whale of rocket designers for generations.2021 December 13, Molly Ball, Jeffrey Kluger, Alejandro de la Garza, “Elon Musk: Person of the Year 2021”, in TIME, archived from the…. From the entry white whale
  • This apparently causes no problems, because beaked whales—keeping it weird—neither bite nor chew their food.2021 March 30, J. B. MacKinnon, “An Entire Group of Whales Has Somehow Escaped Human Attention”, in The Atlantic. From the entry teuthivorous
  • “What are some of your favorite outdoor and indoor activities?” “Well, whale watching is growing on me.”2015, Jenny Elliott, Save Me, Macmillan, →ISBN, page 82. From the entry grow on
  • Jaw tight, Ryder picked up his hammer, set a framing nail, and whaled on it.2012, Nora Roberts, The Last Boyfriend, page 71. From the entry whale on
  • We'll be staying outside tonight in that land whale we drove up in."2012, Linda Townsley, The Dream Singer, WestBow Press, published 2012, →ISBN. From the entry landwhale
  • Would you know what to do if you witnessed the spectacular sight of a whale “breaching”?2012, James Doyle, A Young Scientist's Guide to Defying Disasters with Skill & Daring, Gibbs Smith, page 142. From the entry spy hop

Meaning of whale

  1. noun Any large cetacean, usually with the exclusion of dolphins and porpoises.
  2. noun Any species of Cetacea, including dolphins and porpoises.
  3. noun Something, or someone, that is very large.

Full definition of whale

Questions about whale in a sentence

How do you use whale in a sentence?
Whale is used as a noun and verb. For example: “For quotations using this term, see Citations:whale.”
What is a short sentence with whale?
“Sperm whales and dolphins are odontocetes.”
What does whale mean?
Whale means any large cetacean, usually with the exclusion of dolphins and porpoises.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: whale (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use whale in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/whale. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.