great whale

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English

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Noun

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great whale (plural great whales)

  1. Any of the largest thirteen species of whale currently extant (a polyphyletic grouping, all of which are baleen whales except the sperm whale).
    • 1971 Dec, National Geographic, page 725:
      Other early hunters of whales included [...] the Basques, who developed the first organized whale fishery [...] in the Bay of Biscay, and who managed through overfishing virtually to eliminate an entire stock of great whales - those known as the Biscayan right whales.