or plural whale: any of various very large, aquatic, marine mammals (order Cetacea) that have a torpedo-shaped body with a thick layer of blubber, paddle-shaped forelimbs but no hind limbs, a horizontally flattened tail, and nostrils that open externally at the top of the head
Monstro, more monster than whale here, is scarier than ever before. Joey Morona, cleveland, 8 Sep. 2022 Each probe is carrying a record, imprinted on gold, of sounds on Earth, including a baby’s cry, a whale’s song, music by Mozart and Chuck Berry, and greetings in 55 different languages. Tom Metcalfe, NBC News, 30 Aug. 2022 Dua wore matching bikini bottoms that peeked out of a sheer coverup, whale-tail style.Seventeen, 22 Aug. 2022 What is the biggest animal in the world?:Largest whale, land animal on earth broken down. Michael Goldberg, USA TODAY, 18 Aug. 2022 Seabirds noted from a whale watch off Provincetown included 2 Wilson’s storm-petrels, 220 Cory’s shearwaters, 1,050 great shearwaters, 12 sooty shearwaters, and 6 Manx shearwaters.BostonGlobe.com, 17 Aug. 2022 Farther east, massive pods of whales converge just off the shores of the De Hoop Nature Reserve in the Western Cape during peak whale season, from June through November. Jen Murphy, WSJ, 17 Aug. 2022 Experts see SAvEWhales as a useful addition to a growing field of passive whale-monitoring systems. Claudia Geib, Smithsonian Magazine, 15 Aug. 2022 So has the fishing industry, expressing deep concern that the wind turbines would interfere with aerial surveillance of the North Atlantic Right Whale population, potentially leading to the death of an entangled whale. Oren Cass, CNN, 11 Aug. 2022 See More
Word History
Etymology
Noun
Middle English, from Old English hwæl; akin to Old High German hwal whale and perhaps to Latin squalus sea fish
Verb (2)
origin unknown
First Known Use
Noun
before the 12th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1