minke

[ming-kee]

noun

a dark-colored baleen whale, Baleanoptera acutorostrata, inhabiting temperate and polar seas and growing to a length of 33 feet (10 meters): reduced in numbers.

Origin of minke

1930–35; < Norwegian minkehval, allegedly after a crew member of the Norwegian whaling pioneer Svend Foyn (1809–94), named Meincke, who mistook a pod of minkes for blue whales

Also called minke whale, lesser rorqual.

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019

British Dictionary definitions for minke whale

minke whale

noun

a type of small whalebone whale or rorqual, Balaenoptera acutorostrata, up to 10 metres longAlso called: minke

Word Origin for minke whale

C20: probably from Norwegian minkehval, from minke lesser + hval whale

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Word Origin and History for minke whale

minke

type of small whale (Balaenoptera acutorostrata), 1939, supposedly from the Norwegian surname Meincke.

The name minke is said to have derived from one of Svend Foyn's crew by the name of Meincke, who mistook a school of these whales for blue whales. Whalers all over the world considered this incident so amusing that they used his name as a household word to describe this species. [J.N. Tønnessen & A.O. Johnsen, "The History of Modern Whaling" (transl. R.I. Christophersen), 1982]

Also known in English as the lesser rorqual and little piked whale.