white whale

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English[edit]

WOTD – 8 June 2023

Etymology[edit]

A white whale or beluga whale (Delphinapterus leucas; sense 1) at an aquarium in Thailand.

From white +‎ whale. The figurative senses refer to the novel Moby-Dick (1851) by the American writer Herman Melville (1819–1891), in which Captain Ahab relentlessly pursues a rare albino sperm whale.[1][2]

Pronunciation[edit]

Noun[edit]

white whale (plural white whales)

  2. Synonym of beluga (“the beluga whale (Delphinapterus leucas), a cetacean found in the Arctic Ocean”)
    Synonyms: melonhead, sea canary
    • 2007, Nancy Lord, “Prologue”, in Beluga Days: Tracking the Endangered White Whale, pages 22–23:
      The English called the beluga the "white whale", a name often still used (and not to be confused with the white whale of Moby-Dick, which was an albino sperm whale).
  3. Any whale of the family Monodontidae, which comprises the beluga whales and narwhals (Monodon monoceros), and some extinct species.
  4. (figuratively)
    1. An obsession, a monomania.
      • 2008, Glen Inglis, Broken Heroes, page 228:
        No … no sapphires. It looks like Lester Velasquez was chasing his white whale. There never were any sapphires inside that diner.
      • 2016 August 2, Mike Isaac, “Instagram takes a page from Snapchat, and takes aim at it, too”, in The New York Times‎[1], →ISSN:
        For nearly four years, Snapchat has been Facebook’s white whale.
      • 2021 December 13, Molly Ball, Jeffrey Kluger, Alejandro de la Garza, “Elon Musk: Person of the Year 2021”, in Time Magazine‎[2]:
        After being lofted into space by a Falcon Super Heavy, his next rocket, the Starship, will light out for the moon, land there, take off and return to Earth, with no stages expended on the lunar journey. This so-called single-stage-to-orbit model has been the white whale of rocket designers for generations.
    2. (collectible card games) A printing plate, used to manufacture a particular sports card, that is then issued as a collectible itself.

Translations[edit]

Delphinapterus leucas — see beluga whale
obsession, monomania — see obsession,‎ monomania

References[edit]

  1. ^ “white whale, n.” under “white, adj. (and adv.) and n.”, in OED Online Paid subscription required⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, March 2023.
  2. ^ “white whale, n.”, in Collins English Dictionary.

Further reading[edit]

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