whaling

Pluralwhalings (some meanings)

1. 1
   noununcountable

   The hunting of whales, typically for oil, meat, or baleen.

   Commercial whaling drove several species to the brink of extinction.

   The town's economy depended on whaling throughout the nineteenth century.

   Note

   The trade the word most often names is regulated by quota. Kate Marvel, writing in 2025, recalls the International Whaling Commission, set up in 1946 to regulate whale stocks and to "make possible the orderly development of the whaling industry." As that phrase shows, whaling readily works as a modifier: the whaling industry, a whaling nation, a whaling town. Its verb is the intransitive whale, "to hunt for whales."

2. 2
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of whale.

   The fleet was whaling in Arctic waters when the storm hit.

   Whaling through the night, the sailors filled the hold with oil.

   Note

   One spelling serves two verbs. The intransitive whale, "to hunt whales," gives progressives like the fleet was whaling. The slang, transitive whale, "to thrash," takes a direct object: he kept whaling the intruder. As a gerund it overlaps the nouns. Whaling as a trade echoes the hunting noun, and a whaling given to someone echoes the noun for a beating.

   His father was whaling him with a leather belt.

   The boxer kept whaling his opponent's ribs until the bell.

3. 3
   nouncolloquialcountable or uncountable

   A severe beating or thrashing.

   The champion handed his opponent a thorough whaling in the ring.

   She threatened the kids with a whaling if they didn't behave.

   Similarbeating, thrashing, hiding, drubbing

   Note

   The noun behind a slang verb. To whale someone is to thrash or flog them soundly, and what they receive is a whaling. It usually comes as the object of give or hand, as in handed a thorough whaling, and it belongs to casual speech, where the verb itself counts as slang.

4. 4
   noununcountable

   A highly personalized cyberattack directed at a senior business executive.

   Like spear-fishing aimed at the biggest fish in the company.

   Security analysts traced the whaling back to a single forged email.

   Executives are prime targets for whaling because of their access to company funds.

   Note

   Security jargon that borrows the figurative whale, someone very large. It is a variant of spear phishing aimed at the biggest fish in a company. Attackers impersonate trusted parties and tailor each message to the target's role. Prithviraj Gohel's Cyber Attacks: are we really secure? (2017) stresses how such attacks weigh the specific responsibilities of executive positions. The word often appears attributively, as in whaling attacks.

5. 5
   noununcountable

   The practice of locating and observing whales, typically from shore or a boat.

   Coastal whaling draws naturalists and photographers every migration season.

   The guide led a morning of whaling along the rugged shoreline.

   Note

   Easily misread, because the same word names the hunt. A morning of whaling could mean harpoons or binoculars, and only the setting tells them apart: a guide, a shoreline, naturalists with cameras. When the context does not settle it, choose wording that does, since the hunting sense shares every letter of this one.

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