Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The collection of small marine crustaceans of the order Euphausiacea that are the principal food of baleen whales.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun any of several small marine crustacean species of plankton in the order Euphausiacea in the class Malacostraca

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun shrimp-like planktonic crustaceans; major source of food for e.g. baleen whales

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Norwegian kril, young fry of fish.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Dutch kriel ("puny/tiny"), applied to fish fry (in the sense of hatchlings); sometimes interpreted as "whale food".

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word krill.

Examples

  • Krill oil is an oil extracted from shrimp-like crustaceans called krill.

    The Debate Over Men And Omega-3 2011

  • Their definition of forage fish includes fishes, squids, and the shrimp-like crustaceans called krill that swarm in cold waters where they feed everything from seabirds to whales.

    Carl Safina: Seabirds: The Other Seafood Lovers Carl Safina 2012

  • Antarctica was the antithesis of the jungle or the rain forest, where everything burgeoned and mutated and thousands of species and tens of thousands of * A krill is a small, shrimplike marine crustacean and a vital constituent of the Antarctic food chain.

    Terra Incognita Wheeler, Sarah 1996

  • The sex lives of the ocean-dwelling crustaceans known as krill have been largely a mystery.

    Yahoo! News: Business - Opinion 2011

  • Their definition of forage fish includes fishes, squids, and the shrimp-like crustaceans called krill that swarm in cold waters where they feed everything from seabirds to whales.

    The Full Feed from HuffingtonPost.com Carl Safina 2012

  • Krill oil is an oil extracted from shrimp-like crustaceans called krill.

    The Full Feed from HuffingtonPost.com Craig Cooper 2011

  • Asper says about a half-dozen dead shrimp-like creatures known as krill were atop a sample taken two miles south of the well - but there's no way to tell whether oil killed them.

    hattiesburgamerican.com - 2010

  • Asper says about a half-dozen dead shrimp-like creatures known as krill were atop a sample taken two miles south of the well - but there's no way to tell whether oil killed them.

    hattiesburgamerican.com - 2010

  • Asper says about a half-dozen dead shrimp-like creatures known as krill were atop a sample taken two miles south of the well - but there's no way to tell whether oil killed them.

    KFDM.com Breaking News : News 2010

  • The whales feed on small sea creatures known as krill, which in turn eat microscopic marine algae.

    Greenpeace UK - Comments 2010

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • Apparently there's been a large increase in the commercial krill catch in recent years. Licensed to krill?

    March 6, 2009