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

President Florentino Perez landed his white whale in ex-Paris Saint-Germain forward Kylian Mbappe this summer, and looked set to repeat the same formula with Alphonso Davies. —Tom Sanderson, Forbes, 6 Dec. 2024

Impeachment has been a white whale for Republicans in the 118th Congress, but many see the pardon of one of the central figures in their Biden investigations as a vindication of their efforts. —Andrew Solender, Axios, 3 Dec. 2024

For more than two decades, Musk’s white whale has been the red planet. —Simon Shuster, TIME, 21 Nov. 2024

In October, Musk signaled a fundamental shift for Tesla in the direction of self-driving cars — a professional white whale of Musk’s. —Beck Andrew Salgado, Austin American-Statesman, 19 Nov. 2024

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