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
• 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
• 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
• Stewart’s white whale had been captured in Labrador, Canada.
  — Jeff Suess, The Enquirer, 25 Apr. 2021
• His white whale is a patent model of one of the earliest proto-typewriters, last seen in the nineteen-forties.
  — Nicola Twilley, The New Yorker, 12 Mar. 2024
• Housing is the perennial white whale, given how many buyers are bereft at the dearth of affordable options.
  — Jane Thier, Fortune, 23 Mar. 2024

Last Updated: 29 Sep 2024