MEANING
To strip skin or blubber from a whale, seal, or similar carcass.
Use it for
A body processed as a carcass; stripping a thick organic covering; industrialized bodily reductionPreserve the animal-processing association when adapting it to horror.
Words that belong together
- flense a whale
- flensed carcass
- flensing knife
On the page
The workers flensed the whale beside the slipway.
A flensed carcass lay beneath the tarpaulin.
In the story, the machine flensed the creature before recognizing that it was alive.
Nearby words
Related words
Word forms
- Base
- flense / flenses
- Past tense
- flensed
- Past participle
- flensed
- Present participle
- flensing
Full tense & aspect guide
- Present
- flense / flenses
- Present continuous
- am/is/are flensing
- Present perfect
- have/has flensed
- Present perfect continuous
- have/has been flensing
- Past
- flensed
- Past continuous
- was/were flensing
- Past perfect
- had flensed
- Past perfect continuous
- had been flensing
- Future
- will flense / flenses
- Future continuous
- will be flensing
- Future perfect
- will have flensed
- Future perfect continuous
- will have been flensing
Choose the auxiliary that agrees with your subject. These are constructions of one word, not separate entries.
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Usage notes
Primary category: horror. Established processing term, narrower in ordinary use than flay. Human application in horror is a deliberate grim extension, not its usual trade context. Verb [base, third-person present, past, past participle, -ing]: flense, flenses, flensed, flensed, flensing. Alternative spelling: flench, flenches, flenched, flenching. Derived/related family (not inflections): flenser (agent noun).
Practice this word in a sentenceYour margin notes
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