Whaling
noun, verb, slang ·Moderate ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 The practice of hunting whales. countable, uncountable
"In 1946, the International Whaling Commission (IWC) was established to regulate whale stocks and “make possible the orderly development of the whaling industry”. It attempted to impose quotas and move the industry toward something more sustainable. This proved difficult, so the IWC simply gave up and imposed a moratorium on whaling altogether. Some countries flounced out in a huff; others had never joined in the first place."
- 2 The practice of spotting whales. countable, uncountable
- 3 A beating. countable, informal, uncountable
- 4 A form of highly personalized cyberattack that targets a senior business executive. countable, uncountable
"Whaling attacks typically take specific responsibilities of these executive roles into consideration, using focused messaging to trick the victim."
- 1 present participle and gerund of whale form-of, gerund, participle, present
Example
More examples"Some countries have stopped whaling in the face of international criticism."
Related phrases
More for "whaling"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.