Word Pronunciation & Dictionary

whale's road

Word Rarity Very rare

Frequency: Zipf frequency 2.34 in modern English

Syllables: whale's road
IPA

17

Scrabble Score

10

Letters

1

Syllables

9

Unique Chars

Meaning

noun

The ocean; the open sea.

Literary

Example Sentences

"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."
"[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."
"Taken 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."
"[H]ow likely was it that a man would take a ship alone, especially in deep water, the whale's road?"

Etymology

Calque of Old English hranrād, from hran (“whale”) + rād (“road”).

Usage

Literary

Inflected Forms

the whale's road (canonical)

Synonyms

swan's road whale-road whale's way

Questions

What does whale's road mean?: The ocean; the open sea.
Where does whale's road come from?: Calque of Old English hranrād, from hran (“whale”) + rād (“road”).

How to pronounce whale's road

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