Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The oil obtained from the blubber of a whale or other cetacean.
  • noun Oil discolored in running machinery.

Etymologies

Sorry, no etymologies found.

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Examples

  • They had prepared to overwinter, they had whale-oil supplies, seal meat.

    Royal Society publishes tales of oil on troubled waters and the first roll-ups 2011

  • "But Ahuna, putting out the various calabashes of light by drowning the wicks in the whale-oil, did not observe me include the shinbone of Laulani with the bones of my grandmother."

    SHIN-BONES 2010

  • He had brought with him a coconut calabash, tightly stoppered, of whale-oil that must have been landed on Lahaina beach thirty years before.

    SHIN-BONES 2010

  • While he was away I placed the whale-oil cooking lamp in the middle of the igloo, and moved the mangy sleeping furs back that I might have room.

    A HYPERBOREAN BREW 2010

  • Ahuna, sepulchrally muttering prayers and meles, moved about, lighting various whale-oil lamp-calabashes.

    SHIN-BONES 2010

  • While he was away I placed the whale-oil cooking lamp in the middle of the igloo, and moved the mangy sleeping furs back that I might have room.

    A HYPERBOREAN BREW 2010

  • Designed by founder William Penn to embody a stolid practicality, the houses were tidy, compact, and built of pale red brick; the streets broad and straight, with right-angle corners, flagstone sidewalks, and beginning around 1750, lit by whale-oil lamps, the first on the continent.

    Robert Morris Charles Rappleye 2010

  • Designed by founder William Penn to embody a stolid practicality, the houses were tidy, compact, and built of pale red brick; the streets broad and straight, with right-angle corners, flagstone sidewalks, and beginning around 1750, lit by whale-oil lamps, the first on the continent.

    Robert Morris Charles Rappleye 2010

  • There was some industry bustling when the horse-drawn buggy made way for motorcars, or when whale-oil lamps were eventually replaced with light bulbs.

    Re-Localize Our Music | BUZZGRINDER 2010

  • Candles, whale-oil lamps and kerosene lamps followed, then acetelyne gas and finally electricity.

    Candle on the water ewillett 2007

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