Noun

(en noun)

(medicine, oncology, disease) A disease in which the cells of a tissue undergo uncontrolled (and often rapid) proliferation.

* {{quote-book, year=2006, author=(Edwin Black)

, title=Internal Combustion , chapter=1 citation , passage=If successful, Edison and Ford—in 1914—would move society away from the

* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-22, volume=407, issue=8841, page=76, magazine=(The Economist)

, title= Snakes and ladders , passage=Risk is everywhere. From tabloid headlines insisting that coffee causes cancer (yesterday, of course, it cured it) to stern government warnings about alcohol and driving, the world is teeming with goblins. For each one there is a frighteningly precise measurement of just how likely it is to jump from the shadows and get you.}}

(figuratively) Something which spreads within something else, damaging the latter.

{{quote-book, year=1999, author=Bruce Clifford Ross-Larson, title=Effective Writing, page=134 citation

, passage=Sierra Leone's post-dictator problems are almost absurd in their breadth. It once exported rice; now it can't feed itself. The life span of the average citizen is 39, the shortest in Africa. Unemployment stands at 87 percent and tuberculosis is spreading out of control. Corruption, brazen and ubiquitous, is a cancer on the economy.}}

Noun

(en noun)

Any of several species of large sea mammals of the order Cetacea.

* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-08-03, volume=408, issue=8847, magazine=(The Economist)

, title= Yesterday’s fuel , passage=The dawn of the oil age was fairly recent. Although the stuff was used to waterproof boats in the Middle East 6,000 years ago, extracting it in earnest began only in 1859 after an oil strike in Pennsylvania.

(figuratively) Something, or someone, that is very large.

* 1920 September, “A Reformed Free Lance” (pseudonym), “Doctoring a Sick Encyclopedia”, in The Writer , Volume XXXII, Number 9, page 131:

It was a whale of a job. It took two months, and the fair blush of youth off my cheeks.

* 1947 May 19, John Chamberlain, “Will Clayton and his Problem”, in , page 120:

But when it comes to his business life and business career, is not as other men; he is such a whale of a lot better that it suggests a qualitative as well as a quantitative difference.

(gambling) (In a casino) a person who routinely bets at the maximum limit allowable.

* 2003 , Jeff Wuorio, How to Buy and Sell (Just About) Everything ,

These are often no-limit games as maximum bets cramp a whale ’s style.

* 2004 , Norm Clarke, Vegas Confidential: Norm! Sin City's Ace Insider 1,000 Naked Truths, Hot Spots and Cool Stuff ,

A handful of the richest whales routinely play for $200,000 a hand. Australian media mogul Kerry Packer not only regularly bets that much, but has plunked down $200,000 bets for the dealer as a form of a tip.

* 2008', Deke Castleman, '''''Whale Hunt in the Desert ,

The high roller who had the most ferocious reputation for trying to run the business of the casinos where he played, before he died on December 26, 2006, was Kerry Packer. In the casino world, Packer was the Prince of Whales .