Meanings
- literarykenningThe ocean; the open sea.
[H]ow likely was it that a man would take a ship alone, especially in deep water, the whale's road?
2006, Kelley M. Wickham-Crowley, edited by Clare A. Lees and Gillian R. Overing, A Place To Believe In, Pennsylvania University Press, page 1033 more examples
From the land of Mermedonia are we come, Borne hither from afar; our high-prowed ship Carried us o'er the whale's road with the flood, Our sea-horse fleet, all girt about with speed.
1899, Robert Kilburn Root, Andreas: The Legend of St. Andrew, New York: Henry Holt and Company, page 9[E]ach of the transcendentalists went his own way [...] driven at last to some wayward retreat of his own - a library in a mossy house in Concard, a pitched tent along the Merrimack River, or even at sea , on the whale's road, where the white foam sprays and the horological soul dreams of its chronometrical truth.
1952, The American Temper, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, page 203Taken by themselves, the kennings are not especially witty, and calling a ship “a sea-stallion” and the open sea “the whale's road” is no great feat.
2014, M.J. Toswell, Borges the Unacknowledged Medievalist, New York: Palgrave MacmillanSynonyms: swan's road, whale-road, whale's way
Synonyms & antonyms
nounThe ocean; the open sea.
Origin
- Old Englishhranrād
- Englishwhale's road
Calque of Old English hranrād, from hran (“whale”) + rād (“road”).
More words from Old English
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
whale's road. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/whale's%20road
“whale's road.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/whale's%20road. Accessed November 5, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “whale's road,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/whale's%20road.
Source: whale's road on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.