whale-fisher

plural whale-fishers · alternative whalefisher · alternative whale fisher

1. One who hunts whales.

   The larger the game the more keen the excitement ; and no elephant-hunter's eagerness ever surpasses the zest of the whale-fisher when once started in pursuit of the prey.

   1878, Jules Verne, Dick Sand, A Captain at Fifteen

   2 more examples

   At the first sound, Swertha fell into an agreeable dream of a young whale-fisher, who some forty years before used to make such a signal beneath the window of her hut; at the second, she waked to remember that Johnnie Fea had slept sound among the frozen waves of Greenland for this many a year, and that she was Mr. Mertoun's governante at Jarlshof; at the third, she arose and oened the window.

   1822, Walter Scott, The Pirate

   The whale-fishers approach the whale in boats, and attack it by harpoons to which lines are affixed, following up and repeating the attack, until its strength is exhausted, taking advantage of the necessity which it experiences of coming at intervals to the surface to breathe, and finally killing it with lances, which are thrust into the most vital parts.

   1882, The American Universal Cyclopædia