Whale

4 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Whale \Whale\, n. [OE. whal, AS. hw[ae]l; akin to D. walvisch,
     G. wal, walfisch, OHG. wal, Icel. hvalr, Dan. & Sw. hval,
     hvalfisk. Cf. {Narwhal}, {Walrus}.] (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.
     [1913 Webster]
  
     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
           (see Illust. of {Right whale}), the Biscay whale, the
           Antarctic whale, the gray whale (see under {Gray}), the
           humpback, the finback, and the rorqual.
           [1913 Webster]
  
     {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. --Simmonds.
  
     {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.
        [1913 Webster]

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  whale
       n 1: a very large person; impressive in size or qualities [syn: {giant},
             {hulk}, {heavyweight}]
       2: any of the larger cetacean mammals having a streamlined body
          and breathing through a blowhole on the head
       v : hunt for whales

From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:

  121 Moby Thesaurus words for "whale":
     Loch Ness monster, alevin, angle, bait the hook, baste, bastinado,
     beat, belabor, belt, benthon, benthos, birch, bob, buffet, cane,
     cetacean, clam, club, cowhide, cudgel, cut, dap, dib, dibble,
     dinosaur, dolphin, dress down, drive, drub, elephant, fingerling,
     fish, flagellate, flail, flax, flog, fly-fish, fry, fustigate,
     game fish, gig, give a dressing-down, give a whipping,
     give the stick, go fishing, grig, grilse, guddle, hide, hippo,
     hippopotamus, horsewhip, hulk, jack, jacklight, jig, jumbo, kipper,
     knout, lace, larrup, lash, lather, lay on, leather, leviathan,
     lick, mammoth, man-eater, man-eating shark, marine animal,
     mastodon, minnow, minny, monster, nekton, net, paddle, panfish,
     pistol-whip, plankton, pommel, porpoise, pummel, rawhide, salmon,
     scourge, sea monster, sea pig, sea serpent, sea snake, seine,
     shark, shrimp, smite, smolt, spank, spin, sponge, still-fish,
     strap, stripe, swinge, switch, tan, thrash, thump, thumper, torch,
     trawl, trim, troll, tropical fish, trounce, truncheon, wallop,
     wear out, welt, whip, whop, whopper
  
  

From Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary [easton]:

  Whale
     The Hebrew word _tan_ (plural, tannin) is so rendered in Job
     7:12 (A.V.; but R.V., "sea-monster"). It is rendered by
     "dragons" in Deut. 32:33; Ps. 91:13; Jer. 51:34; Ps. 74:13
     (marg., "whales;" and marg. of R.V., "sea-monsters"); Isa. 27:1;
     and "serpent" in Ex. 7:9 (R.V. marg., "any large reptile," and
     so in ver. 10, 12). The words of Job (7:12), uttered in bitter
     irony, where he asks, "Am I a sea or a whale?" simply mean,
     "Have I a wild, untamable nature, like the waves of the sea,
     which must be confined and held within bounds, that they cannot
     pass?" "The serpent of the sea, which was but the wild, stormy
     sea itself, wound itself around the land, and threatened to
     swallow it up...Job inquires if he must be watched and plagued
     like this monster, lest he throw the world into disorder"
     (Davidson's Job).
     
       The whale tribe are included under the general Hebrew name
     _tannin_ (Gen. 1:21; Lam. 4:3). "Even the sea-monsters
     [tanninim] draw out the breast." The whale brings forth its
     young alive, and suckles them.
     
       It is to be noticed of the story of Jonah's being "three days
     and three nights in the whale's belly," as recorded in Matt.
     12:40, that here the Gr. ketos means properly any kind of
     sea-monster of the shark or the whale tribe, and that in the
     book of Jonah (1:17) it is only said that "a great fish" was
     prepared to swallow Jonah. This fish may have been, therefore,
     some great shark. The white shark is known to frequent the
     Mediterranean Sea, and is sometimes found 30 feet in length.