Forms: 1 hwæl, 3–4 whal, wal, 4–5 wall, 4–7 whall, 5 wale, 5–6 whalle, 7 whaill, wheal, 4– whale; chiefly Sc. and north. 3 qual, 4 quale, 5 qwal, qwall(e, qwaylle, 5–6 quhail(l, 6 quhale, quhell. [OE. hwæl, corresp. to OHG., MHG. wal (G. walfisch WHALE-FISH, q.v.), ON. hvalr (Sw., Da. hval), related to OHG. wâlira, welira, MHG. wâlre, and MHG., G. wels (:—*χwalis) sheath-fish; cf. Pruss. kalis sheath-fish.
The present form whale represents oblique forms (OE. hwalas, etc.); the OE. nom. hwæl gave 14th–17th cent. whall (cf. small, awl, † all, from smæl, æl).]
1. Any of the larger fish-like marine mammals of the order Cetacea, which have fore-limbs like fins and a tail with horizontal flukes, and are hunted for their oil and whalebone; in wider (scientific) use, any cetacean of the groups Mystacoceti or whalebone-whales, and Odontoceti or toothed whales (which are distinguished by the names dolphin, grampus, porpoise, etc.).
c. 893. K. Ælfred, Oros., I. i. § 16. Se hwæl bið micle læssa þonne oðre hwalas.
c. 1000. Ælfric, Gen. i. 21. God ʓesceop þa þa micelan hwalas and eall libbende fisc-cinn.
c. 1055. Byrhtferth’s Handboc, in Anglia, VIII. 310. Þa myclan hwælas, & þa lytlan sprottas.
c. 1220. Bestiary, 735. He is blac so bro of qual.
c. 1300. Havelok, 753. He tok þe sturgiun, and þe qual.
c. 1325. Metr. Hom., 136. Riht als the quale fars wit the elringe, And riht als sturioun etes merling.
c. 1330. Arth. & Merl., 1495. He hadde a bodi as a whal.
c. 1386. Chaucer, Sompn. T., 222. Me thynketh they been lyk Iovinyan Fat as a whale and walkynge as a swan.
14[?]. Metr. Voc., in Wr.-Wülcker, 625/11. Wale, cete.
14[?]. Nom., ibid. 704/15. Hic cetus, a whalle.
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 523. Whale, or qwal, grete fysche.
1513. Douglas, Æneis, VII. Prol. 23. Fludis monstreis, sic as meirs wyne or quhailis.
1606. Shaks., Tr. & Cr., V. v. 23. And there they flye or dye, like scaled sculs, Before the belching Whale.
1707. Curios. in Husb. & Gard., 140. Steep your Corn, or any other Seed, in Oil of Whale.
1769. Pennant, Brit. Zool., III. 35. Whales are still seen one hundred and sixty feet long.
1843. Penny Cycl., XXVII. 272/2. The Toothed Whales are subdivided into those which have teeth in both jaws and those which have teeth in the lower jaw.
1860. Gosse, Rom. Nat. Hist., x. 259. The pursuit of the whale, whether that species which our hardy mariners seek amidst the ice-floes of the Polar Seas, or the still huger kind which wallows in the boundless Pacific.
collective sing. 1637. I. Jones & Davenant, Brit. Tri., 15. And then on Rock he [sc. the giant] stood to bob for Whale.
1845. J. Coulter, Adv. Pacific, vii. 78. While cruising for whale, the look-outs are on the cross trees.
b. With defining words for various species:
e.g., BOTTLE-NOSE(D w., CA’ING-WHALE, FIN-, FINBACK(ED, FINNER, GREENLAND, GREY (a. 8 b), HUMPBACK, ICE-, PIKE-, PIKED, PIKE-HEADED, PILOT, ROSTRATED, round-lipped (ROUND a. 16 b), SCRAG (sb.1 5), SPERMACETI w., SPERM WHALE, WHALEBONE-w. Also Beaked, Black, Bowhead, Sowerby’s, White Whale: see quots.
1755. trans. Pontoppidan’s Nat. Hist. Norway, II. 123. I shall call it Balæna rostrata, or Nebbe-hval, the *Beaked Whale.
1920. Brit. Mus. Return, 89. Cuvier’s Beaked Whale (Ziphius cavirostris).
1834. Dewhurst, Cetacea, 16, note. La Baleine Franche,… Common *Black Whale.
1840. Marryat, Poor Jack, vi. The sparmacitty don’t take the harpoon quite so quietly as the black whale does.
1843. Penny Cycl., XXVII. 296/1. The Whalebone Whale or Black Whale of the South Seas.
1883. Fisheries Exhib. Catal. (ed. 4), 201. Slabs of whalebone of *Bowhead Whale.
1920. Brit. Mus. Return, 101. Tooth of a *Sowerby’s Whale (Mesoplodon bidens).
1834. Dewhurst, Cetacea, 190. Delphinapterus Beluga, or the *White Whale.
(b) Right Whale, a whalebone whale, esp. of the genus Balæna. Hence right-whaling, right-whaler, etc.
1725. P. Dudley, in Phil. Trans., XXXIII. 256. The Right or Whalebone Whale is a large Fish, measuring sixty or seventy Feet in Length.
1824. J. F. Cooper, Pilot, xvii. ’Tis a right whale,… I saw his spout.
1874. Darwin, Desc. Man, II. xvii. (ed. 2), 516. The males of the right-whales do not fight together.
1888. Encycl. Brit., XXIV. 527/2. A right whale fishery of great importance.
1895. Pall Mall Gaz., 16 Dec., 2/1. Just before I took to ‘right’ whaling.
2. Applied to the ‘great fish’ which swallowed Jonah (Jonah i. 17).
c. 950. Lindisf. Gosp., Matt. xii. 40. Suæ forðon wæs ionas in innað vel in wom huales ðrim daʓum & ðrim næhtum [1382 Wyclif As Jonas was in the womb of a whall three days and three niȝtis].
13[?]. E. E. Allit. P., C. 247. Now is ionas þe Iwe iugged to drowne;… A wylde walterande whal … bi þat bot flotte.
c. 1450. St. Cuthbert (Surtees), 572. Grete god … Þat saued þe prophete with in þe whall.
1548. Udall, etc., Erasm. Par. Acts i. 22–28. Euen as did ye whale reuomit the prophet Ionas.
a. 1586. Montgomerie, Misc. Poems, xxxi. 35. Ionas, in þe quhellis bellie, þow safit thre dayis.
1687. A. Lovell, trans. Thevenot’s Trav., I. 41. Jona’s Whale is also to go to Paradise.
† 3. Whale of the river, rïver-whale: = SHEATH-FISH1, a large freshwater fish, Silurus glanis. Obs.
1585. Higins, Junius’ Nomencl., 69/2. Silurus,… a fish much like a Sturgeon: a sheathfishe; a whale of the riuer.
1611. Cotgr., Silure, the rauening sheat fish, or Whall of the riuer.
4. transf. (from 1). An object resembling a whale; Astron. (with cap.) the constellation Cetus.
1551. Recorde, Cast. Knowl. (1556), 267. The greate Whale, contayning 22 starres.
1664. Phil. Trans., I. 5. In the evening of that day it [sc. a comet] was to come into the jaw of the Whale.
1760. Ann. Reg., Chron., 66/1. The comet … passed … toward the whale’s jaw.
1866. Lockyer, Guillemin’s Heavens (ed. 2), 356.
1905. F. M. Crawford, Glean. Venet. Hist., I. 5. When the first fugitives, blind with terror, stumbled ashore upon the back of one of the sand whales in the lagoon.
5. Allusive, proverbial, transf., and fig. uses of sense 1. a. Prov. phr. (To throw out) a tub to the whale: see TUB sb. 9 b. Very like a whale (after Shaks. Ham., III. ii. 398): see quot. 1859.
[1591. 1st Pt. Troub. Raigne K. John (1611), C 3 b. The mariner, Spying the hugie Whale, whose monstrous bulke Doth beare the waues like mountaines fore the wind, That throwes out emptie vessels, so to stay His fury.]
1859. Slang Dict., 115. Very like a whale, said of anything that is very improbable.
b. allusively.
1601. Shaks., All’s Well, IV. iii. 249. A … lasciuious boy, who is a whale to Virginity, and deuours vp all the fry it finds.
1606. Dekker, Seuen Deadly Sinnes, Wks. (Grosart), II. 27. Be wise therefore,… play with these Whales of the Sea, till you escape them that are deuourers of your Merchants.
1914. Marriott, in Edin. Rev., July, 1. Amid a shoal of minnows they promptly pose as authoritative whales.
c. fig. phr. A whale on..., having a great capacity or appetite for…, very good at or keen on…. A whale of (U.S.): ‘no end of.’ colloq.
1893. McCarthy, Red Diamonds, xxiii. He was not, as he put it himself graphically, a whale on geography.
1899. A. Marshall, Peter Binney, xvi. 326. I should be a whale on parental authority myself if I were in your place.
1913. E. B. Osborn, in 19th Cent., Sept., 621. The Samideanoj (‘adherents to the same idea’ or fellow-Esperantists) had what the Americans call ‘a whale of a good time.’
6. attrib. and Comb., as whale-blubber [BLUBBER sb.1 4], -butt, -calf [CALF1 3], -catching, -cub, -cutter, -drive [DRIVE sb. 1 c], -duty, -guts, -hunter (cf. OE. hwælhunta), -hunting (cf. OE. hwælhuntaþ), -killer, -killing, -kind, -meat, -spoilt, -steak, -striker, -striking, -trade, -vessel; also in names of weapons, etc., used in hunting whales, as whale-gun, -lance, -line, net, -rope, -spade; also whale-like, -mouthed, -tailed adjs. b. Spec. Combs.: whale-acorn-shell (see quot.); whale-barnacle = CORONULE 2; whale-brit [BRIT sb.1] = whale-food; whale-deep = whale-hole; whale-feed = whale-food; whale(’s) food [trans. G. walfischaas, 1747], a general name for the small animals upon which whales feed; spec. a mollusk, Clio borealis; whale-foots [FOOT sb. 22], the refuse in refining whale-oil, used by soap-makers and tanners; whale-gull, the ivory gull (GULL sb.1); whale-head, the shoebill or whale-headed stork, Balæniceps rex; also called whale-headed stork; † whale-horn, whalebone; whale-laid a. of a rope (see quot.); whale-louse, a small crustacean of the genus Cyamus, parasitic on whales; whale-mouse = whale’s guide; whale-pool humorous, the Atlantic Ocean (cf. herring-pond); whale’s belly, -tail, etc., stars in the constellation Cetus (see 4); † whale’s guide, the animal called by Pliny musculus piscis (cf. note s.v. MYSTICETE1); whale-shark, (a) a very large shark, Rhinodon typicus; (b) the basking-shark (BASKING ppl. a. 2); whale-ship = WHALE-BOAT; † whale-shot [SHOT sb.1 19], spermaceti. Also WHALEBACK, -BIRD, -BOAT, -BONE, -FIN, etc.
1815. Burrow, Elem. Conchol., 194. Balanoides, Small, striated Acorn S[hell]. Diadema, *Whale Do.
1854. A. Adams, etc., Man. Nat. Hist., 305. *Whale-Barnacles (Coronulidæ).
1844. H. Stephens, Bk. Farm, II. 646. *Whale-blubber … forms a good compost for turnips.
1845. Darwin, Voy. Nat., x. 214. A piece of putrid whales-blubber.
1835. J. Batman, in Cornwallis, New World (1859), I. App. 369. The ‘Belinda,’ of Sydney, with a cargo of *whale-butts.
1867. Smyth, Sailor’s Word-bk., *Whale-calf, the young whale.
1685. R. Turner, in W. Penn, Furth. Acc. Pennsylv., 13. Three Companies for *Whale catching.
1885. J. G. Wood, in Longm. Mag., March, 552. The *whale cub, when first formed, has no baleen.
1631. Pellham, God’s Power, A 4 b. Thomas Ayers, *Whale-cutter.
1668. Prynne, Aurum Reg., 127. This *Whale Duty hath been totally suspended … from the death of King Henry the 8, till the first year of King James, for want of a Queen Consort.
1853. Househ. Words, VI. 402/1. The little red creatures (*‘whale feed,’ sailors call them) are retained by the fringe [of the baleen].
1767. trans. Crantz’ Hist. Greenland, I. 109. This *whale’s-food is found in the greatest quantity between Spitzberg, Nova Zembla, John May’s Island, and Greenland.
1865. Gosse, Land & Sea, 166. The immense aggregations of close-packed swimming invertebrata so well known to mariners in Arctic regions under the appellation of ‘whale-food.’
1852. Macgillivray, Brit. Birds, V. 508. Cetosparactes eburneus. The Ivory *Whale-gull.
1858. Merc. Marine Mag., V. 149. The crew … murdered the Captain and third officer by shooting them with a *whale-gun.
1780. Coxe, Russ. Discov., 256. Cloaks,… made of thin *whale guts.
1884. Coues, Key N. Amer. Birds (ed. 2), 654. Balæniceps rex, the Shoe-bill or *Whale-head, of Africa.
1875. Encycl. Brit., III. 759/1. The gigantic *Whale-headed Stork, Balæniceps rex.
1562. in Inv. Mary Q. Scots (Bannatyne Club), Pref. p. xxviii. note. xij bowtis of *quhaill horne.
1598. Hakluyt, Voy., I. 4. He was come as far towards the North, as commonly the *whale hunters vse to trauell.
1851. H. Melville, Whale, xvi. Some of these same Quakers are the most sanguinary of all sailors and whale-hunters.
1615. Trade’s Incr., 52. The Greenland company, out of the pretence of their first *Whale-hunting.
1868. D. Gorrie, Summ. & Wint. Orkneys, viii. 323. The whale-hunting fleet, composed of all varieties of small craft, was now well abreast of our resting-place.
1613. Voy. Spitzbergen, in Archæol. Amer. (1860), IV. 305. When he enters into the sounds, our *whal-killers doe presentlie sallie forth to meet him.
1625. Purchas, Pilgrims, III. III. 461. The first setled, ordinary, and orderly Voyages for the *Whale-killing.
1703. Dampier, Voy., III. ii. 57. About Christmas these are mostly imployed in Whale-killing.
1706. Phillips (ed. Kersey), Manati, a Fish of the *Whale-kind that breeds about the Island of Hispaniola.
1812. G. W. Manby, Ess. Preserv. Shipwr. Persons, 17. It [a rope] may likewise be coiled in the manner used in the whale fishery. *Whale laid.
1823. Scoresby, Voy. N. Whale-fishery, 112. Armed only with a *whale-lance, he … set out on his adventurous exploit.
1608. Sylvester, Du Bartas, II. iv. Schisme, 1016. This mighty Fish, of *Whale-like hugenesse.
1855. J. R. Leifchild, Cornwall, 166. The large whale-like back of a prostrate pillar.
1785. Act 25 Geo. III., c. 56 § 2. Short Chucking, Half Clean, *Whale-line, or other Toppings.
1897. F. T. Bullen, Cruise ‘Cachalot,’ 12. The whale-line, manilla rope like yellow silk, 11/2 inch round, was brought on deck.
1774. Goldsm., Nat. Hist. (1824), III. 21. A small animal, of the shell-fish kind, called the *Whale-louse, that sticks to its body.
1875. Knight, Dict. Mech., s.v. Whalebone, Time has passed since the people of England reveled in *whale meat.
1607. Topsell, Four-f. Beasts, 504. A little fishe called … in Greeke Mystocetos, the *Whale-mouse.
1656. Osborn, Adv. Son (ed. 4), To Rdr. As I did then, in imitation of Sea-men by designe, so I may perhaps now cast out some empty stuffe, to find play for the *Whale-mouth’d gapers after Levity.
1853. Kane, Grinnell Exp., xlvi. (1856), 426. Stalwart fellows, practiced in the kayack, and the sledge, and the *whale-net.
a. 1876. M. Collins, Pen Sketches (1879), II. 145. This is one of the good turns for which I am grateful to our friends across the *whale-pool.
1857. in Trevelyan, Compet. Wallah (1866), 342. A coil of *whale rope.
1573. W. Bourne, Regim. Sea (1580), 59 b. The names of the Starres … *Whales backe. Whales belly…. Whales tayle.
1668. Charleton, Onomast., 125. Cetorum Dux … the *Whales Guide.
1706. Phillips (ed. 6), Mysticetus, a Fish, call’d the Whale’s Guide.
1884–5. Riverside Nat. Hist. (1888), III. 78. The Rhinodontidæ embraces only two species of large sharks, one of which well deserves the name *whale-shark, which is applied to it.
1820. Scoresby, Acc. Arctic Reg., II. 199. The crew of a *whale-ship usually consists of 40 to 50 men.
1612. Sc. Bk. Rates, in Halyburton’s Ledger (1867), 332. *Whale shote the barrell, xx li.
1852. Mundy, Antipodes (1857), 104. The harpoon, the axe, the lance, and the *whale-spade.
1836. Uncle Philip’s Convers. Whale Fishery, 349. They heard *whale-spouts near them.
1613. Voy. Spitzbergen, in Archæol. Amer. (1860), IV. 289. Then the Basks, our *whale-strikers, went presentlie back againe to the Foreland wth their shallops.
1821. Scott, Pirate, xx. No *whale-striking, bird-nesting favourite for me.
1781. Pennant, Hist. Quadrup., II. 537. *Whale-tailed Manati.
1840. R. H. Dana, Bef. Mast, v. He had been forty years in the *whale-trade.
1821. Scott, Pirate, xxxviii. A garland of faded ritbons, such as are used to decorate *whale-vessels.
