Home › Glossary › Letter W

whale

Fauna
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

Want to hear it? Click the Listen button to hear the browser speak the word using text-to-speech!

The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

A whale is a massive marine mammal, the largest animal on earth, symbolizing the sublime, the unknowable deep, and the weight of ancient memory.

Detailed Definition
The whale's enormous size and mysterious songs have long inspired awe in poetry, representing the vast, untamable power of the ocean and the limits of human understanding. From the biblical Leviathan to Melville's white whale, it embodies obsession, fate, and the struggle against cosmic indifference. Poets invoke the whale to convey themes of isolation, the search for meaning, and the haunting beauty of creatures that migrate through unseen depths, surfacing briefly as emblems of the profound and the ineffable.
Example
Example in poetry:
The Old English poem "The Whale" describes it as a fish that deceives.; D.H. Lawrence's "Whales Weep Not!" depicts whales dreaming.; The whale can symbolize the sublime and the unknowable.; Its size represents the vastness of the ocean.; The animal's role in literature is noted.
Additional Notes
The whale's enormous size and mysterious songs have long inspired awe in poetry, representing the vast, untamable power of the ocean and the limits of human understanding. From the biblical Leviathan to Melville's white whale, it embodies obsession, fate, and the struggle against cosmic indifference. Poets invoke the whale to convey themes of isolation, the search for meaning, and the haunting beauty of creatures that migrate through unseen depths. The whale's surface, its blow, and its vast, dark body make it a figure for the sublime—the terrifying and beautiful grandiosity of the natural world. When writing, consider the whale's role as a symbol for the unknowable, the profound, and the weight of ancient memory.
Also Known As
oceanic leviathan majestic singer deep diver
Skip to main content