WHALER

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does whaler mean? 

• WHALER (noun)
  The noun WHALER has 2 senses:

1. a seaman who works on a ship that hunts whales

2. a ship engaged in whale fishing

  Familiarity information: WHALER used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• WHALER (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A seaman who works on a ship that hunts whales

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Hypernyms ("whaler" is a kind of...):

gob; Jack; Jack-tar; mariner; old salt; sea dog; seafarer; seaman; tar (a man who serves as a sailor)

Derivation:

whale (hunt for whales)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A ship engaged in whale fishing

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Synonyms:

whaler; whaling ship

Hypernyms ("whaler" is a kind of...):

ship (a vessel that carries passengers or freight)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "whaler"):

factory ship (a whaling ship equipped to process whale products at sea)

Derivation:

whale (hunt for whales)

 Context examples 

Twice I actually hired myself as an under-mate in a Greenland whaler, and acquitted myself to admiration.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

I found that he had been in command of a whaler which was due to return from the Arctic seas at the very time when my father was crossing to Norway.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

That ship was a whaler, strayed east, far east, from the mouth of the Mackenzie, and it was lying at anchor in Coronation Gulf.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

The amazing strength, the skill in the use of the harpoon, the rum and water, the sealskin tobacco-pouch with the coarse tobacco—all these pointed to a seaman, and one who had been a whaler.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)