0 a strong, flexible material (= one that is able to bend) found as several hanging pieces in the upper part of the mouth of some types of whale, used in the past for example for making corsets (= a tight piece of underwear worn to make the waist appear smaller):
The rising demand for whalebone (baleen) helped to keep the whaling industry alive.
Enterprising sailors carved whalebone to make scrimshaw gifts for mothers, sisters, and faithful sweethearts.
Baleen whales, such as the blue whale and hump back, use their vast curtains of whalebone to sieve a living from the sea.
He did not record the names or arrival dates of a single vessel carved into the whalebone.
Then he told the boy to bring in scrapings of whalebone.
To this must be added the whalebone and guano worth at least £60,000.
There are those creatures which constitute the plankton, upon which subsist mackerel, herring, tunny and the large whalebone whale.
Other forms of scrimshaw included whalebone fids (rope splicer), bodkins (needle), swifts (yarn holding equipment) and sailors' canes.
