whale

I

(New American Roget's College Thesaurus)

n. cetacean; finback; blue, humpback, killer, sperm, sulphur-bottom, or right whale; orca, rorqual, narwhal, blackfish, dolphin, porpoise, grampus; Moby Dick; informal, whopper. See size, animal.

II

(Roget's IV) n.

1. [A marine animal]

Syn. cetacean, leviathan, King of the Deep; see fish .

Types of whales include: sperm, white, blue, right, Greenland, sulphur-bottom, killer, gray, baleen, bottlenose, beaked, toothed, pilot, narwhal, finback, finner, humpback, beluga, blackfish, rorqual, common rorqual, blue rorqual.

2. [*Something impressive]

Syn. a Great deal, a lot, abundance, a Great quantity, large amount, corker*, whopper*, helluva lot*.

III

(Roget's 3 Superthesaurus)

I

n.

cetacean, leviathan, aquatic mammal, humpback whale, blue whale, finback, sperm whale, beluga, rorqual, gray whale.

WORD FIND

• air hole: blowhole, spiracle

• beaching of: stranding

• biblical survivor of ingestion: Jonah

• bone or tooth carvings: scrimshaw

• carcass: kreng

• comblike strainer in the mouth of some breeds: baleen

• cut blubber off from: flense

• diving: sounding

• fat: blubber

• fatty substance used in candles, ointments: spermaceti

• female: cow

• fictional hunter: Ahab

• fin: dorsal fin

• fins, tail: flukes

• horned: narwhal

• hunter’s whale: right whale

• killer whale: orca

• leaping out of the water: breaching

• male: bull

• perfumes, waxy substance used in: ambergris

• prehistoric: zeuglodon

• school: pod, gam

• slapping tail down hard on surface: lobtailing

• sound location: sonar

• study of: cetology

• toothed whales, order of: odontoceti

• toothless whales that feed on plankton: baleen whale, mysticeti

• young: calf

II

v.

whale on, beat, whip, pound, whack, thrash.