• enPR: wāl, IPA: /weɪl/
• (non-wine-whine) enPR: hwāl, IPA: /ʍeɪl/

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

whale (plural whales)

1. Any one of numerous large marine mammals comprising an informal group within infraorder Cetacea that usually excludes dolphins and porpoises.

   Synonyms: baleen

   • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC ↗, Genesis 1:21 ↗:

     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.

2. (by extension) Any species of Cetacea.
3. (figuratively) Something, or someone, that is very large.
   • 1920 September, “A Reformed Free Lance” (pseudonym), “Doctoring a Sick Encyclopedia”, in The Writer, Volume XXXII, Number 9, page 131 ↗:

     It was a whale of a job. […] It took two months, and the fair blush of youth off my cheeks.

   • 2001, Salman Rushdie, Fury: A Novel, London: Jonathan Cape, →ISBN, page 5 ↗:

     Passing the Congregation Shearith Israel on Central Park West (a white whale of a building with a triangular pediment supported by four count ’em four massive Corinthian columns), Professor Solanka scurrying through the downpour remembered the newly bat-mitzvahed thirteen-year-old girl he’d glimpsed through the side door, […]

4. (figuratively, as "whale of a ___") Something, or someone, that is excellent.
   • 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 9780815607397, page 54

     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. (gambling, metaphorically) In a casino, a person who routinely bets at the maximum limit allowable.
6. (finance, metaphorically, informal) An investor who deals with very large amounts of money.
7. (marketing, metaphorically) A person who spends large amounts of money on things that are marketed to them.
8. (metaphorically, colloquial, pejorative) An overweight person (usually a woman)

• narwhal
• rorqual
• walrus

• French: baleine
• German: Wal
• Italian: balena
• Portuguese: baleia
• Russian: кит
• Spanish: ballena

whale (whales, present participle whaling; simple past and past participle whaled)

1. (intransitive) To hunt for whales.

whale (whales, present participle whaling; simple past and past participle whaled)

1. (slang, transitive) To thrash, to flog, to beat vigorously or soundly.
   • 1852, Thomas Chandler Haliburton, Why Mr Sellum disposed of the horse (chapter XIV in Works, volume 22):

     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; […]

• German: verhauen

1. Surname.
2. A hamlet in Lowther, Eden (OS grid ref NY5221).