[f. FIN sb. + -ER1.]
1. A name given to whales of the genus Balænoptera, esp. the Rorqual, from the fact of their having a dorsal fin. Also finner-whale.
1793. Statist. Acc. Scotl., V. 190. These [whales] commonly measure from 60 to 90 feet in length, and are denominated finners.
1822. Scott, Pirate, ii. The Berserkars were champions who lived before the blessed days of Saint Olave, and who used to run like madmen on swords, and spears, and harpoos, and muskets, and snap them all into pieces, as a finner would go through a herring-net, and then, when the fury went off, they were as weak and unstable as water.
1855. E. Forbes, Lit. Papers, v. 152. As long as the sperm-whale and the right-whale are extant, the mighty finners (Balænoptera), whose prodigious fleetness makes them too dangerous to encounter, will escape the fate of their less fortunate and slower brethren.
1865. Athenæum, No. 1987. 732/3. Gave a short account of part of a skeleton of a finner whale sent by Mr. Swinhoe from the coast of Formosa.
1880. Daily News, 8 Dec., 6/7. The great northern Rorqual Razorback, or ‘Finner.’
2. = FINNOC.
1803. J. Mackenzie, Prize Ess. Highl. Soc., II. 378. Finners, or finnocs, which usually abound in every salmon river, have fins of a yellow colour.
