Meanings
plural krangs · alternative crang · alternative kreng
- The portions of a whale that remain after the blubber has been removed, especially the flesh and organs.
Natives came 30 miles over the ice in two sleighs from Navy Board Inlet; hundreds of mollies following the ship all day for bits of krang and blubber.
1900, Andrew Barclay Walker, The Cruise of the Esquimaux, Steam Whaler, to Davis Straits and Baffin Bay, April-October 1899, page 473 more examples
The carcass of the whale, as left after the flensing, is cut to pieces on the platform and receiver for the krang, where krang and bone are elevated and placed in the krang boilers by machinery.
1907, Daily Consular and Trade Reports - Issues 2757-2805, page 14The Mollies do not evince an amiable disposition towards each other; and as the krang ( such is the name given to the refuse parts of the whale ) is cut off, they were to be seen sitting on the water by thousands tearing at the floating pieces, and when one morsel seemed more tempting than another, driving their weaker brethren away from it, and fighting over it as if the sea was not covered with other bits equally good.
1909, William Henry Giles Kingston, Peter the Whaler, page 199The harpooner makes a cut across the neck and then down the body, taking care to take as little of the flesh - or 'Krang' as the body is called in whaling language – as possible.
2003, Frank Nugent, Seek the Frozen Lands: Irish Polar Explorers 1740-1922, page 164 - broadlyAnything that remains after flensing (not necessarily from a whale).
Sideways hurled The krang o ' a warld The sun has flensed Is lyin ' forenenst.
1926, Hugh MacDiarmid, Penny Wheep, page 57
Origin
- Middle Dutchcrenge“carrion, carcass”
- Dutchkreng“a carcass”
- Englishkrang
From Dutch kreng (“a carcass”), from Middle Dutch crenge (“carrion, carcass”), compare with Old English cringan (“to fall, yield, cringe”). Cognate with Danish kreng (“a carcass”).
More words from Dutch, Middle Dutch
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
krang. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/krang
“krang.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/krang. Accessed November 2, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “krang,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/krang.
Source: krang on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.