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whale

noun · verb

Simple meaning

Any one of many large marine mammals including an informal group within infraorder Cetacea that usually excludes dolphins and porpoises.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

wayl
US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

ˈweɪl

This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

noun

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

  2. figurativelyas "whale of a ___"

    Something, or someone, that is excellent.

  3. Any of the larger cetacean mammals having a streamlined body and breathing through a blowhole on the head

  4. A very large person; impressive in size or qualities

  5. by extension

    Any species of Cetacea.

verb

  1. Hunt for whales

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
B2 · Upper Intermediate
Frequency
Moderately Common
Typical Use
Neutral / general English

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

sperm whalewhale oilblue whalekiller whaleright whalegray whalewhale watchinghumpback whale

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Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Inflected forms

Grammatical variations of the same word.

  • whalernounInflected form

    A seaman who works on a ship that hunts whales.

Compound terms

Established multiword terms.

  • whale suckernounCompound term

    Large blue Pacific remora that attaches to whales and dolphins.

  • whale oilnounCompound term

    A white to brown oil obtained from whale blubber.

  • whalebone whalenounCompound term

    Whale with plates of whalebone along the upper jaw for filtering plankton from the water.

  • whale lousenounCompound term

    Amphipod crustacean parasitic on cetaceans.

  • whaling gunnounCompound term

    A gun (or device resembling a gun) for discharging a projectile (especially a harpoon) at a whale.

  • whale sharknounCompound term

    Large spotted shark of warm surface waters worldwide.

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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.