Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The lance used in striking a whale, It may be either a hand-lance or a bomb-lance, but the term is more frequently applied to the former.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • They are mostly young, of stalwart frames; fellows who have felled forests, and now seek to drop the axe and snatch the whale-lance.

    Moby Dick; or the Whale 2002

  • It receives its designation (pitchpoling) from its being likened to that preliminary up-and-down poise of the whale-lance, in the exercise called pitchpoling previously described.

    Great Sea Stories Various 1897

  • Early in the morning, Baker, Davy Butts, and Gregory set off on foot, armed with a rifle and two muskets, besides a couple of harpoons, a whale-lance, and a long line.

    Fast in the Ice Adventures in the Polar Regions 1859

  • They are mostly young, of stalwart frames; fellows who have felled forests, and now seek to drop the axe and snatch the whale-lance.

    Moby Dick: or, the White Whale Herman Melville 1855

  • There, promoted to be harpooner, Israel, whose eye and arm had been so improved by practice with his gun in the wilderness, now further intensified his aim, by darting the whale-lance; still, unwittingly, preparing himself for the Bunker Hill rifle.

    Israel Potter Herman Melville 1855

  • They are mostly young, of stalwart frames; fellows who have felled forests, and now seek to drop the axe and snatch the whale-lance.

    Moby Dick, or, the whale Herman Melville 1855

  • It receives its designation (pitchpoling) from its being likened to that preliminary up-and-down poise of the whale-lance, in the exercise called pitchpoling, previously described.

    Moby-Dick, or, The Whale 1851

  • They are mostly young, of stalwart frames; fellows who have felled forests, and now seek to drop the axe and snatch the whale-lance.

    Moby-Dick, or, The Whale 1851

  • (pitchpoling) from its being likened to that preliminary up-and-down poise of the whale-lance, in the exercise called pitchpoling, previously described.

    Moby Dick; or the Whale 2002

  • (pitchpoling) from its being likened to that preliminary up-and-down poise of the whale-lance, in the exercise called pitchpoling, previously described.

    Moby Dick: or, the White Whale Herman Melville 1855

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