Definition of "harpoon" []

• A spearlike weapon with a barbed head used in hunting whales and large fish. (noun)
• To strike, kill, or capture with or as if with a spearlike weapon. (verb-transitive)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "For the Inuits, anything with more range than a spear or harpoon is a quantuum leap."
• "The bomb-lance and gun are all very well; but the harpoon is the real weapon on which the whaleman must depend."
• "There is, moreover, a kind of harpoon which is shot from a gun, but being difficult to adjust, it is seldom used."