minke

[ ming-kee ]

noun

1. 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.

Word History and Origins

Origin of minke¹

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

Example Sentences

Frances Robertson, a project manager, researches minke whales off the clock.

From Seattle Times

The aquarium received a report of a minke whale with a white shark bite off Chatham, Massachusetts, recently, and this is also the time of year scientists expect to see the sharks head to inshore waters to hunt seals, the aquarium said Thursday.

From Seattle Times

The commercial whaling industry within the Japanese EEZ last year caught 294 minke, Bryde’s and sei whales, less than 80% of the quota and fewer than the number it once hunted in the Antarctic and the northwestern Pacific under the research program.

From Seattle Times

They can be identified by their lack of a dorsal fin and mottled appearance that makes them very different from whales more commonly seen off New England such as the humpback whale and minke whale.

From Seattle Times

Thanks to Danish and Scottish Marine Mammal Stranding Networks, the researchers could quickly extract the larynx of a sei, minke and humpback whale for close investigation in the lab.

From Science Daily