Word Pronunciation & Dictionary

fail whale

Word Rarity Rare

Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.89 in modern English

Syllables: fail whale
IPA

18

Scrabble Score

9

Letters

1

Syllables

7

Unique Chars

Meaning

noun

An image of a whale that formerly accompanied certain error messages on the Twitter microblogging website.

Etymology

The fail whale originated on Twitter; the term was coined by web designer Jen Simmons in 2007 in a tweet.

Inflected Forms

fail whales (plural)

Questions

What does fail whale mean?: An image of a whale that formerly accompanied certain error messages on the Twitter microblogging website.
Where does fail whale come from?: The fail whale originated on Twitter; the term was coined by web designer Jen Simmons in 2007 in a tweet.

How to pronounce fail whale

Open the pronunciation page — Open the Speakur entry for “fail whale”.
Read the phonetic spelling — Read the IPA spelling () so you know which sounds to aim for.
Play the audio — Click Play to hear reference audio for “fail whale”.
Repeat and practice — Say “fail whale” aloud, matching stress and vowels until it feels natural.