flense
Americanverb (used with object)
-
to strip the blubber or the skin from (a whale, seal, etc.).
-
to strip off (blubber or skin).
verb
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of flense
1805–15; < Danish flense or Dutch flensen
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.
See Examples For:
It took us two hours to kill our first whale, and four to flense it.
From Peter the Whaler by Henry Austin
I scarcely believe that in the course of the day we met with a single piece of ice large enough to flense a seal upon.
From The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II by Alexander Leslie
After the body of the Enron data has been secured in a researcher’s computer like the sperm whale to the side of the Pequod, it must be flensed into useful parts.
From Scientific American ● Jun. 18, 2013
Until I had first seen the carcass of one lying flensed on the ice, I could not have believed that any wild beast could attain such gigantic proportions.
From Wild Adventures round the Pole The Cruise of the "Snowbird" Crew in the "Arrandoon" by Gordon Stables
Wilson carried out a suggestion of his own to-night by covering the runners of a 9-ft. sledge with strips from the skin of a seal which he killed and flensed for the purpose.
From Scott's Last Expedition Volume I by Robert Falcon Scott
All of it, good and bad, every moment flensed away.
From Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom by Cory Doctorow
Cutting the flensed blubber of a whale into pieces, fitted to pass in at the bilge-holes of the butts which receive it.
From The Sailor's Word-Book An Alphabetical Digest of Nautical Terms, including Some More Especially Military and Scientific, but Useful to Seamen; as well as Archaisms of Early Voyagers, etc. by Sir Edward Belcher
"The Offer," which confuses a baring-it-all origin story with a botched whale flensing, does not substantively change that.
From Salon ● Apr. 29, 2022
Over the next few hours Fred was in charge of carving up the whale, known as flensing.
From BBC ● Jul. 14, 2013
They dragged it back to the ship and began flensing it of its blubber.
From Salon ● Jun. 12, 2012
A gang of workmen, wielding long-handled flensing knives, sliced off the thick blubber in foot-wide strips.
From Time Magazine Archive
According to Hussey, the harbor had a “most appalling stench” from the dead whales moored in the harbor awaiting flensing.
From "Shipwreck at the Bottom of the World" by Jennifer Armstrong
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