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
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Rayquaza This story’s white whale is a black dragon: Horizon’s Rayquaza may be the biggest, fiercest and most elusive shiny Pokémon introduced in the anime to date.—Jack Smart, PEOPLE, 10 Oct. 2025 This was Costner’s white whale, a $200 million Western that made Dances With Wolves look like a Sundance indie.—Peter Kiefer, HollywoodReporter, 8 Oct. 2025 By getting one of the world’s most powerful drug companies to finally agree to his demands, Trump has caught a white whale.—Nicholas Florko, The Atlantic, 2 Oct. 2025 The film has remained in the vault for years since, becoming somewhat of a white whale for the director’s fans.—J. Kim Murphy, Variety, 1 Oct. 2025 See All Example Sentences for white whale
Word History
Etymology
(sense 2) after the white sperm whale obsessively hunted by Captain Ahab in Herman Melville's novel Moby Dick (1851)
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