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Whale   /weɪl/  /hweɪl/   Listen
noun
Whale  n.  (Zool.) Any aquatic mammal of the order Cetacea, especially any one of the large species, some of which become nearly one hundred feet long. Whales are hunted chiefly for their oil and baleen, or whalebone. Note: The existing whales are divided into two groups: the toothed whales (Odontocete), including those that have teeth, as the cachalot, or sperm whale (see Sperm whale); and the baleen, or whalebone, whales (Mysticete), comprising those that are destitute of teeth, but have plates of baleen hanging from the upper jaw, as the right whales. The most important species of whalebone whales are the bowhead, or Greenland, whale, the Biscay whale, the Antarctic whale, the gray whale (see under Gray), the humpback, the finback, and the rorqual.
Whale bird. (Zool.)
(a)
Any one of several species of large Antarctic petrels which follow whaling vessels, to feed on the blubber and floating oil; especially, Prion turtur (called also blue petrel), and Pseudoprion desolatus.
(b)
The turnstone; so called because it lives on the carcasses of whales. (Canada)
Whale fin (Com.), whalebone.
Whale fishery, the fishing for, or occupation of taking, whales.
Whale louse (Zool.), any one of several species of degraded amphipod crustaceans belonging to the genus Cyamus, especially Cyamus ceti. They are parasitic on various cetaceans.
Whale's bone, ivory. (Obs.)
Whale shark. (Zool.)
(a)
The basking, or liver, shark.
(b)
A very large harmless shark (Rhinodon typicus) native of the Indian Ocean. It sometimes becomes sixty feet long.
Whale shot, the name formerly given to spermaceti.
Whale's tongue (Zool.), a balanoglossus.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Whale" Quotes from Famous Books



... first double Canoe we had seen in this Country. They staid about the Ship until it was dark, then left us; but not before they had thrown a few stones. They told us the name of the Island, which was Mowtohora.* (* Motuhora, called also Whale Island.) It is but of a small Circuit, but high, and lies 6 Miles from the Main. Under the South side is Anchorage in 14 fathoms. South-West by South from this Island on the Main land, seemingly at no great distance from the Sea, is a high round ...
— Captain Cook's Journal During the First Voyage Round the World • James Cook

... that list should include the eland, white rhinoceros, blessbok, bontebok, kudu, giraffes and southern elephants, sable antelope, rhinoceros south of the Zambesi, leucoryx antelope and whale-headed stork. In Asia it should include the great Indian rhinoceros and its allied species, the burrhel, the Nilgiri tahr and the gayal. The David deer of Manchuria already is extinct in a ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday

... shall be a great Whale, Mistris, at all his bignesse spouting huge Hils of salt-water afore him, like a little water squirt, but you shall not neede to feare him Mistris, for he shal be silke, and gould, he shall doe you noe harme, and he be nere ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. III • Various

... thoughtful look, but more frequently with a smile. Generally when he had concluded a period, in the course of a dispute, by which time he was a good deal exhausted by violence and vociferation, he used to blow out his breath like a Whale. This I supposed was a relief to his lungs; and seemed in him to be a contemptuous mode of expression, as if he had made the arguments of his opponent fly like chaff before ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... She was held in Bowie County, Hickens[HW:sp.] Prairie, by Bob Trammel. They kept her locked up and I have heard mother say that she used whale bone, card bats and a spinning wheel. Finally they got so hot behind the Trammels in 1847-48, they pulled up stakes and went down on the Guadalupe River and carried my mother's mother down there. Before they left Dave Block went on Trammel's ...
— Slave Narratives: Arkansas Narratives - Arkansas Narratives, Part 6 • Works Projects Administration


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