Meanings
plural whalesmen
- One who hunts whales; a whaler.
Take heed young whalesmen and listen to my word.
2011, Frank Rogers, The God of Shattered Glass, page 2242 more examples
The old whalesman was not long aboard before getting confirmed in his conjecture that the ship was the same whose boats had harpooned and “drogued” the cachalot', the carcass of which had been encountered by the Catamaran.
1865, Mayne Reid, The Ocean Waifs: A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea, page 363That's the distinction your heroic whalesman made about us fishermen, just because he thought the whale's brain enlightened the world while we brayed like asses about the hard life we led. So I say a whalesman is to a fisherman as a gold-digger is to a quarryman.
2013, Jonathan Bayliss, Gloucestertide
Origin
From whales + -man.
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
whalesman. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/whalesman
“whalesman.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/whalesman. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “whalesman,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/whalesman.
Source: whalesman on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.