How to Use white whale in a Sentence

white whale

noun
  • Or maybe chase your own white whale, like my Antonov An-225.
    Eric Adams, Popular Mechanics, 11 Apr. 2021
  • About an hour into the swim, the team spotted a pod of black-and-white whales.
    National Geographic, 21 June 2018
  • The rum has been selling well, but even now Thrasher feels the wake of the great white whale.
    Washington Post, 22 June 2021
  • If there's that one white whale item that's been evading you, these are the places to find it.
    Heather Bien, Southern Living, 12 July 2024
  • Ever since high school, French has been my big white whale.
    Bill Blanning, latimes.com, 8 Oct. 2017
  • Who’s your great white whale in terms of interviews? Judy Blume.
    Mikey O'Connell, The Hollywood Reporter, 17 May 2022
  • The academy has been chasing this white whale for a while.
    Travis Andrews, Washington Post, 12 Mar. 2024
  • Whatever your white whale is, now is the time to go after it.
    Kelly Lawler, USA TODAY, 5 Jan. 2018
  • Belugas are white whales that can weigh up to 3,500 pounds.
    USA TODAY, 1 Nov. 2019
  • But like in the great Herman Melville novel, the pursuit of the great white whale might end up dooming the voyage, not the whale.
    John Shu, National Review, 5 Aug. 2023
  • My road trip white whale is to eventually get to a Buc-ees.
    Josh Newman, The Salt Lake Tribune, 14 Dec. 2022
  • Drilling down into the cause of that drag decrease remains the panel’s white whale.
    Gabe Lacques, USA TODAY, 11 Dec. 2019
  • There is a typewriter that is like the white whale of typewriters.
    John McMurtrie, San Francisco Chronicle, 26 Apr. 2018
  • Diana is such a white whale of a role—Naomi Watts did it in the past; obviously, there's The Crown.
    Michelle Ruiz, Vogue, 29 Sep. 2021
  • But in this family of three or four, there was one solid white whale, which is very rare.
    Caitlin O'Kane, CBS News, 20 Aug. 2020
  • Some other whale had gnawed off Ahab’s leg; the white whale was as innocent as the driven snow.
    Elizabeth Kolbert, The New Yorker, 4 Sep. 2023
  • So the surfers press on, in search of the perfect wave, a sea creature as elusive and symbolic as Ahab’s white whale.
    BostonGlobe.com, 3 Oct. 2019
  • Taft-Hartley is the labor movement’s great white whale.
    Timothy Noah, The New Republic, 9 Feb. 2022
  • White, straight-leg jeans have been my sartorial white whale for the better half of 2022.
    The Glamour Editors, Glamour, 4 Jan. 2023
  • On top of all this, Apple’s white whale these days seems to be developing a car.
    Steven Levy, Wired, 10 Dec. 2021
  • In San Antonio, fish and chips is something of a white whale, chased by pub-crawling Capt.
    Mike Sutter, San Antonio Express-News, 22 Oct. 2021
  • It’s been the sort of white whale of drug discovery for 40 years in oncology.
    Elizabeth Cooney, STAT, 25 Dec. 2021
  • Vegan cheese is sort of the white whale of vegan products as a whole.
    Quartz Staff, Quartz, 8 Nov. 2021
  • For decades, this swath of Manhattan had been a white whale for New York politicians looking to make their mark on the skyline.
    Curbed, 19 Oct. 2022
  • For a record seeker like myself, this late season snow storm allowed me to catch my snow white whale.
    Harry Enten, CNN, 22 Mar. 2018
  • For many journalists, Mr. Weinstein was the white whale that got away.
    Jim Rutenberg, New York Times, 11 Oct. 2017
  • My white whale at this point would be Denzel Washington.
    Lacey Rose, The Hollywood Reporter, 19 Sep. 2024
  • The other goal, of course, is their great white whale—a non-fossil-fuel economy.
    Daniel Henninger, WSJ, 25 May 2022
  • How did Napoleon being Kubrick’s white whale inform your own approach?
    Marlow Stern, Rolling Stone, 24 Nov. 2023
  • By Anna Luisa Rodriguez For a long time, eggplant was my white whale of summer produce.
    Anna Rodriguez, Washington Post, 24 July 2024

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'white whale.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Last Updated: