whale

UK/ˈweɪl/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

British/ˈwɛj(ə)l/

whale noun: any large cetacean, usually with the exclusion of dolphins and porpoises.

Image: Fritz Geller-Grimm, CC BY-SA 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

whale (plural whales)

Any large cetacean, usually with the exclusion of dolphins and porpoises.
- Near-synonym: baleen (obsolete sense)
- And God created great whales, and euery liuing creature that moueth, which the waters brought forth aboundantly after their kinde, and euery winged foule after his kinde: and God saw that it was good.1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Genesis 1:21
Synonyms:

baleen
(broadly) Any species of Cetacea, including dolphins and porpoises.
- The dawn of the oil age was fairly recent. Although the stuff was used to waterproof boats in the Middle East 6,000 years ago, extracting it in earnest began only in 1859 after an oil strike in Pennsylvania.[…]It was used to make kerosene, the main fuel for artificial lighting after overfishing led...2013 August 3, “Yesterday’s fuel”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8847, archived from the original on 26 Mar 2019
Synonyms:

cetacean
(figuratively) Something, or someone, that is very large.
- It was a whale of a job. […] It took two months, and the fair blush of youth off my cheeks.1920 September, “A Reformed Free Lance” (pseudonym), “Doctoring a Sick Encyclopedia”, in The Writer, Volume XXXII, Number 9, page 131
- 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
(figuratively) Something, or someone, that is excellent.
- My own father only wrote one poem in his life as far as I know, but it was a whale of a lyric, the kind you would give your whole life to write, which he did, but that is another story.2002, Kathleen Benson, Philip M. Kayal, Museum of the City of New York, A Community of Many Worlds: Arab Americans in New York City, Syracuse University Press →ISBN, page 54
- 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, →ISBN
(figuratively) A 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. Australian media mogul Kerry Packer not only regularly bets that much, but has plunked down $200,000 bets for the dealer as a form of a tip.2004, Norm Clarke, Vegas Confidential: Norm! Sin City's Ace Insider 1,000 Naked Truths, Hot Spots and Cool Stuff
Synonyms:

high roller
(figuratively, informal) An investor who deals with very large amounts of money.
- If the banks knew how big Archegos’s position was, they may have realized other banks were supplying it with the same leverage — and reconsidered the trade. 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
(figuratively) A 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
- These different customer groups will be attracted to very different promotions. 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 & Sons, →ISBN, page 99
(colloquial, derogatory, figuratively) An overweight person (usually a woman)
- The whale is still snoring. He's a real beauty, the whale. Got this thick curly hair all over his chest and stomach and legs.1983, Paul T. Rogers, Saul's Book

Verb (1)

whale (third-person singular simple present whales, present participle whaling, simple past and past participle whaled)

(intransitive) To hunt for whales.

Verb (2)

whale (third-person singular simple present whales, present participle whaling, simple past and past participle whaled)

(slang, transitive) To thrash, to flog, to beat vigorously or soundly.
- Brought him back, put him in the stall—low stable—got out of his reach, and then begun to whale him. Then he kicked up agin; […]1852, Thomas Chandler Haliburton, Why Mr Sellum disposed of the horse (chapter XIV in Works, volume 22)
- "I wouldn't let him. When you were a boy in your part of the country, and other boys told tales about you, what did you do with them?" "Whaled 'em like time, Captin'," answered the man; "and if ye'll only shet yer eyes to 't, I'll whale him." "I can't allow such things in the prison," said the...1865 May, “Three Days at Camp Douglass”, in Our Young Folks: An Illustrated Magazine for Boys and Girls, volume I, number V, page 296

Proper noun capitalized: Whale

Whale

A surname.
A hamlet in Lowther parish, Westmorland and Furness, Cumbria, England, previously in Eden district (OS grid ref NY5221).

whale meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

whale in Hindi

large sea mammal: व्हेल vhel, ह्वेल hvel, तिमि timi, तिमिंगल timiṅgal

whale in Tamil

large sea mammal: சிலக்குணம் cilakkuṇam, சிலத்திற்கடுகு cilattiṟkaṭuku, திமிங்கிலம் timiṅkilam

whale in Urdu

large sea mammal: وہیل vhel, وھیل vhel

More languagesFewer languages

whale in Bengali: তিমি timi
whale in Telugu: తిమింగలం timiṅgalaṁ
whale in Malayalam: തിമിംഗലം timiṅgalaṁ
whale in Kannada: ತಿಮಿಂಗಿಲ timiṅgila
whale in Gujarati: વ્હેલ માછલી vhel māchlī, તિમિ timi
whale in Odia: ତିମି timi
whale in Sanskrit: तिमि timi
whale in Assamese: তিমি timi, তিমি মাছ timi mas
whale in Nepali: तिमि timi
whale in Pashto: نهنګ naháng
whale in Tagalog: balyena, tandayag
whale in Arabic: حُوت ḥūt
whale in Malay: ikan paus, paus, lodan, mina
whale in Indonesian: ikan paus
whale in Thai: วาฬ waan, ปลาวาฬ bplaa-waan
whale in Vietnamese: cá voi, cá ông, cá ông voi, kình ngư
whale in Myanmar: ဝေလငါး wela.nga:, ငါးဝန် nga:wan

Examples of whale in a sentence

For quotations using this term, see Citations:whale.
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:
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:
In the casino world, Packer was the Prince of Whales.2008, Deke Castleman, Whale Hunt in the Desert:
[…] gleaned from their activity: one group they dubbed “whales,” the highest-value customers, who bought shave cream and wipes as well as razors; […]2020, Lawrence Ingrassia, Billion Dollar Brand Club: How Dollar Shave Club, Warby Parker, and Other Disruptors Are Remaking What We Buy...

All 40 example sentences with whale

Synonyms of whale

Forms of whale

Noun
plural	whales
Verb
third-person singular present	whales
present participle	whaling
past participle	whaled
past	whaled

Plural of whale: whales

Origin of whale

From Middle English whal, whale, from Old English hwæl (“whale”), from Proto-West Germanic *hwal, from Proto-Germanic *hwalaz (“whale”) (compare German Wal, Swedish val, Danish and Norwegian Bokmål hval, Norwegian Nynorsk kval; compare also Dutch walvis, West Frisian walfisk, from Proto-Indo-European *(s)kʷálos (“sheatfish”) (compare German Wels, Latin squalus (“big sea fish”), Old Prussian kalis, Ancient Greek ἄσπαλος (áspalos), Avestan 𐬐𐬀𐬭𐬀 (kara, “kind of fish”)).

Uncertain. Perhaps a variant of wale influenced by whack, whap, etc.

Words formed from whale

Phrases with whale

54 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with whale

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about whale

What does whale mean?: Whale means any large cetacean, usually with the exclusion of dolphins and porpoises.
What is whale in Hindi?: Whale in Hindi is व्हेल (vhel), ह्वेल (hvel), तिमि (timi). See Whale meaning in Hindi.
How do you use whale in a sentence?: For quotations using this term, see Citations:whale.
What part of speech is whale?: Whale can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce whale?: Whale is pronounced /ˈweɪl/ (UK).
What is the plural of whale?: The plural of whale is whales.

Words near whale in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: whale (page history and authors); Whale (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-whale.ogg.

Cite this entry: “whale.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/whale. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.