v. Also flence, flinse. [a. Da. flense of same meaning; the word with wider application is found in Norw. as flinsa, flunsa to flay, tear off.]
1. trans. To cut up and slice the fat from (a whale or flayed seal); to slice (the blubber) from the bones of the whale.
1814. Scott, To Dk. Buccleugh, 13 Aug., in Lockhart.
| The Islesmen of Sanda were all at the spoil, | |
| And flinching (so term it) the blubber to boil. |
1820. Scoresby, Acc. Arctic Reg., II. 292. Before a whale can be flensed, as the operation of taking off the fat and whalebone is called, some preliminary measures are requisite.
1822. G. W. Manby, Journal of a Voyage to Greenland, in the Year 1821 (1823), 65. The fish was fastened by the tail to a boat, and towed to the ship, for the purpose of ‘flincing,’ or stripping it of its blubber.
1867. Smyth, Sailor’s Word-bk., Flense.
2. To flay or skin (a seal); to strip off (the skin of a seal).
1874. Markham, Whaling Cruise, ii. 33. Directly a seal was shot, we would at once pull in to the ice on which it was lying, and I was surprised at the marvellous rapidity and dexterity with which our men would skin, or as it is termed, ‘flinch’ the beast.
1875. Capt. Gray, in F. T. Buckland, Log-bk., 312–3. The [seal] skins are then flenched, and the blubber, cut into long strips, forked down into the hold and put into the tanks. Two thousand skins flenched is considered a good day’s work.
1881. A. Leslie, trans. Nordenskiöld’s Voy. Vega, iii. 114. If the hunter lies to at an ice-floe to flense upon it a seal that has been shot, it is not long till a large number of snow-white birds with dark blue bills and black legs settle down in the neighbourhood in order that they may get a portion of the spoil.
Hence Flenching, Flensing vbl. sb.; also Flencher, Flenser, one who flenches or flenses whales.
1814. Scott, Diary, 11 Aug., in Lockhart. The wounded man went on board his vessel, the crew of which, about fifty strong, came ashore with their long flinching knives with which they cut up the whales, and falling upon the Dutchmen, though twice their numbers, drove them all into the sea, where such as could not swim were in some risk of being drowned.
1820. Scoresby, Acc. Arctic Reg., II. 299. The flensers commence with the belly and under jaw, being the only parts then above water. Ibid., II. 301. When sharks are present, they generally take the liberty of helping themselves very bountifully during the progress of the flensing; but they often pay for their temerity, with their lives.
1874. Markham, Whaling Cruise, iv. 50. The cutting up or ‘flinching’ of the fish.
