Definition of "bowhead" [bow•head]

• A whalebone whale (Balaena mysticetus) of Arctic seas, having a very large head and an arched upper jaw. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "The bowhead is a single species - closely related to the right whale - and is remarkable for being the only baleen whale to spend all its time in Arctic waters."
• "I serpose w'en he kaint get nary fish he do de same ez de 'bowhead' -- go er siftin eout dem little tings we calls whale-feed wiv dat ar 'rangement he carry in his mouf. ""
• "These two ships were from New Bedford, and they had put into the little harbour to wood and water, and give their sea-worn crews a fortnight's rest ere they sailed northward away from the bright isles of the Pacific to the cold, wintry seas of the Siberian coast and the Kurile Islands, where they would cruise for "bowhead" whales, before returning home to"