whaling

[hwey-ling, wey-]

noun

1. the work or industry of capturing and rendering whales; whale fishing.

2. Digital Technology.,  a phishing attempt by someone posing as a company’s attorney, CEO, vendor, or other authorized entity in order to scam a payroll department, corporate executive, etc., out of money or confidential information.

   The source of the whaling gave all appearances of legitimacy and trustworthiness.

whaling

/ ˈweɪlɪŋ /

noun

1. the work or industry of hunting and processing whales for food, oil, etc

adverb

1. informal,  (intensifier)

   a whaling good time

Other Word Forms

• antiwhaling adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of whaling¹

whale ¹ + -ing ¹; whaling def. 1 was first recorded in 1680–90; whaling def. 2 in 2010–15 (in the sense “hunting for a big fish/phish”)

Example Sentences

Scientists around the world will now share and analyse these precious mud samples to work out how human activity - including a century of industrial whaling - affected Antarctica and the rest of our planet.

From BBC

Those two events helped spark the first Earth Day, in 1970, and the shutdown of America’s last whaling station in 1971.

From Los Angeles Times

It is estimated that 2.9 million whales were killed by the whaling industry in the 20th Century alone.

From BBC

She said the increase could be due to a number of reasons, including that whale populations are recovering following the end of commercial whaling in the 1980s.

From BBC

Like bowhead and right whales, these were also almost wiped out by whaling.

From Salon

Related Words

• beating 
• blow 
• breakdown 
• collapse 
• debacle 
• destruction 
• drubbing 
• embarrassment 
• failure 
• killing 
• loss 
• massacre 
• rout 
• setback 
• thrashing 
• triumph