Definition: In the 1800s sailors on long whaling voyages would pass the time by carving elaborate designs into the teeth of whales that had been killed on the voyage. The carved teeth, and other carved pieces of ivory, became known as scrimshaw.
The origin of the term is unknown. One theory is that the word may have been a person's name, but there is no proof of that.
In Moby Dick Herman Melville uses the term "scrimshandering" to describe the act of carving whale's teeth.
