Hello, you have come here looking for the meaning of the word white whale. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word white whale, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say white whale in singular and plural. Everything you need to know about the word white whale you have here. The definition of the word white whale will help you to be more precise and correct when speaking or writing your texts. Knowing the definition ofwhite whale, as well as those of other words, enriches your vocabulary and provides you with more and better linguistic resources.
2007, Nancy Lord, “Prologue”, in Beluga Days: Tracking the Endangered White Whale, pages 22–23:
The English called the beluga the "white whale", a name often still used (and not to be confused with the white whale of Moby-Dick, which was an albino sperm whale).
No … no sapphires. It looks like Lester Velasquez was chasing his white whale. There never were any sapphires inside that diner.
2016 August 2, Mike Isaac, “Instagram takes a page from Snapchat, and takes aim at it, too”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:
For nearly four years, Snapchat has been Facebook’s white whale.
2021 December 13, Molly Ball, Jeffrey Kluger, Alejandro de la Garza, “Elon Musk: Person of the Year 2021”, in Time Magazine:
After being lofted into space by a Falcon Super Heavy, his next rocket, the Starship, will light out for the moon, land there, take off and return to Earth, with no stages expended on the lunar journey. This so-called single-stage-to-orbit model has been the white whale of rocket designers for generations.
, Oxford: Oxford University Press, March 2023.
Beluga whale on Wikipedia.Wikipedia 