white whale

noun

1

: beluga sense 2

2

or less commonly great white whale : something (such as a goal or object) that is obsessively pursued

It was the old man's white whale, the holy grail shining at the end of the dream, on and off the rails, as he chased scripts, directors, and movie stars of the proper magnitude.

—Rich Cohen

For drug makers, developing the first Alzheimer's therapy has long been seen as the great white whale: the toughest challenge and biggest opportunity.

—Robert Weisman

Illustration of white whale

• white whale 1

Examples of white whale in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

The Oilers have clearly become the Kings’ white whale, the foe who must be vanquished. —Kevin Baxter, Los Angeles Times, 29 Dec. 2024

The film's brash, documentary-style production perfectly captured Hackman's character, a seething, sadistic NYC cop seeking to bust a ring of heroin smugglers — like Ahab on the hunt for the white whale. —David Morgan, CBS News, 27 Feb. 2025

Meanwhile, 125 miles south in Fort Myers, Alex Bregman — the white whale of the Tigers’ winter — was dropping off his bags as a member of the Boston Red Sox. —Cody Stavenhagen, The Athletic, 15 Feb. 2025

Come to think of it, László's model looks very much like a big white whale that happened to swallow a church. —Tom Gliatto, People.com, 3 Jan. 2025

Word History

Etymology

(sense 2) after the white sperm whale obsessively hunted by Captain Ahab in Herman Melville's novel Moby Dick (1851)

First Known Use

1635, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Rhymes for white whale

• abigail
• cottontail
• countervail
• fingernail
• martingale
• mesoscale
• microscale
• monorail
• nanoscale
• ponytail
• swallowtail
• wensleydale