A person or ship that hunts whales, especially one who worked in commercial whaling in the 1600s-1900s.
From 'whale' + -er (one who does), creating a word for whale hunters; became prominent in English during the commercial whaling era of the 1700s-1800s.
Moby Dick's Captain Ahab was a whaler whose obsession mirrors how real whaling captains became wealthy and famous—19th-century whalers were basically the astronauts of their time, gone for years on dangerous voyages.
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