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great variety of unctuous combustible substances, not miscible with water; as, olive oil, whale oil, rock oil, etc. They are of animal, vegetable, or mineral origin and of varied composition, and they are variously used for food, for solvents, for anointing, lubrication, illumination, etc. By extension, any substance o…

A framework of steel or whalebone, worn by women to expand their dresses; a kind of bustle.

A group of extinct carnivorous whales. Their teeth had compressed and serrated crowns. It includes Squalodon and allied genera.

The genus that includes the sperm whale.

es to some of the scales. Called also mountain black snake. (b) The pine snake. -- Pilot whale. (Zoöl.) Same as Blackfish, 1.

A small whale.

ree angular points are poles of the sides of a given triangle. See 4th Pole, 2. -- Polar whale (Zoöl.), the right whale, or bowhead. See Whale.

A slender elastic rod, as of whalebone, with a sponge on the end, for removing obstructions from the esophagus, etc.

To beat down, or beat in pieces; to dash forcibly; to crush. The whales Against sharp rocks, like reeling vessels, quashed, Though huge as mountains, are in pieces dashed. Waller.

A very large North Atlantic whalebone whale (Physalus antiquorum, or Balænoptera physalus). It has a dorsal fin, and strong longitudinal folds on the throat and belly. Called also razorback.

A ragged, stunted tree or branch. Scrag whale (Zoöl.), a North Atlantic whalebone whale (Agaphelus giddosus). By some it is considered the young of the right whale.

A shell, a whale's tooth, or the like, that is scrimshawed. [Sailor's cant, U.S.]

The beluga, or white whale.

rbed condition; to render quiet; to still; to calm; to compose. God settled then the huge whale-bearing lake. Chapman. Hoping that sleep might settle his brains. Bunyan.

Angel. -- Thrasher shark, or Thresher shark, a large, voracious shark. See Thrasher. -- Whale shark, a huge harmless shark (Rhinodon typicus) of the Indian Ocean. It becomes sixty feet or more in length, but has very small teeth.

A sucking whale less than one year old; -- so called by sailors.

A whaler's name for a whale more than two years old.

purposes, as for stripping the planking from a vessel's side, for cutting blubber from a whale, or for stirring a fire of coals; a slice bar; a peel; a fire shovel. [Cant]

slightly turned up; as, the snub- nosed eel. Snub-nosed cachalot (Zoöl.), the pygmy sperm whale.

education, labor, punishment of crime, reformation of criminals, and the like. -- Social whale (Zoöl.), the blackfish. -- The social evil, prostitution.