Ahab
Americannoun
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Bible. a king of Israel and husband of Jezebel, reigned 874?–853? b.c. null Achab
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Literature. the captain of the ship Pequod and tragic hero of Melville's Moby Dick, obsessed with the pursuit of the white whale.
noun
Etymology
Origin of Ahab
From Hebrew Aḥʾābh, probably “father's brother”
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Like Herman Melville’s Captain Ahab in pursuit of his whale, Mr. Tesson is drawn to “The White,” his mythic name for mountain snowscapes.
From The Wall Street Journal • Dec. 11, 2025
He was a favorite punching bag of the mainstream media, a slovenly suburban Ahab doomed to fail.
From Los Angeles Times • Jul. 17, 2025
Okay, he’s going to make Melville’s Captain Ahab look like Barry Allen?
From Salon • Nov. 28, 2024
To my relief, the directors Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin, working with the screenwriter Julia Cox, trace Diana’s mythic roots not just to the naiads, but to zealots like Captain Ahab.
From New York Times • Nov. 2, 2023
“The Reel is tipped on the beach here, but I don’t see any damage. And Captain Ahab is here to live another day of the eight lives he’s got left.”
From "Shouting at the Rain" by Lynda Mullaly Hunt
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
