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whale

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whale¹

  • /ˈweɪl/ US, UK
  • /ˈwɛj(ə)l/ British, Southern, Standard
  • /ˈwæɪl/ Australia, New Zealand
  • /ˈweːl/ Wales
  • /ˈʍel/ Scotland
  • /ˈʍeːl/ Ireland

Sounds like wale (wine–whine merger), wail (both wine–whine merger and pane–pain merger) · Rhymes with -eɪl

Where it comes from

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”)).

noun whales

  1. Any large cetacean, usually with the exclusion of dolphins and porpoises. Near-synonym: baleen (obsolete sense)

    Similar: baleen

  2. 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

    Similar: cetacean

  3. 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.
  4. figuratively, as "whale of a ___" 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.
  5. figuratively A gambler who routinely wagers large amounts of money. These are often no-limit games as maximum bets cramp a whale’s style.

    Similar: high roller

  6. 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.
  7. 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.
  8. 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.

Similar: whale

verb whales · whaling · whaled

  1. intransitive To hunt for whales.

whale²

  • /ˈweɪl/ US, UK
  • /ˈwɛj(ə)l/ British, Southern, Standard
  • /ˈwæɪl/ Australia, New Zealand
  • /ˈweːl/ Wales
  • /ˈʍel/ Scotland
  • /ˈʍeːl/ Ireland

Sounds like wale (wine–whine merger), wail (both wine–whine merger and pane–pain merger) · Rhymes with -eɪl

Where it comes from

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

verb whales · whaling · whaled

  1. 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; […]

Whale³

proper noun

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

Thesaurus

Closest in meaning: heavyweight, hulk, giant, cetacean, orc, orca, finback, bowhead, rorqual, beluga, cete, whaler, pig, animal, sperm, woodland

noun

Similar: whale

Translations

Every language

noun large sea mammal

Españolballena
한국어고래 gorae
日本語鯨 kujira, クジラ kujira, 勇魚 isana
中文鯨魚 /鲸鱼 jīngyú
हिन्दीव्हेल vhel, ह्वेल hvel, तिमि timi, तिमिंगल timiṅgal
Kiswahilinyangumi
Portuguêsbaleia
Françaisbaleine
DeutschWal
Italianobalena
Ελληνικάφάλαινα fálaina
Românăbalenă
Русскийкит kit
Tiếng Việtcá voi, cá ông, cá ông voi, kình ngư
العربيةحُوت ḥūt
עבריתלווייתן \ לִוְיָתָן livyatán

verb hunt for whales

中文捕鯨 /捕鲸 bǔjīng

verb to beat vigorously

Deutschverhauen

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MLA

"whale." Wiktionary, via Micwyn, micwyn.com/word/whale. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026.

APA

whale. (n.d.). In Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Retrieved November 6, 2026, from https://micwyn.com/word/whale

Chicago

"whale." Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Accessed November 6, 2026. https://micwyn.com/word/whale.

BibTeX
@misc{whale_2026,
  title = {whale},
  howpublished = {Wiktionary, via Micwyn},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://micwyn.com/word/whale},
  urldate = {2026-11-06}
}