Word.ws English Dictionary

crow's-nest

crow's-nest is the alternative spelling of crow's nest.

Meaning of crow's nest

Noun

crow's nest (plural crow's nests)

  1. A small open-top shelter, originally a cask, on the top of the foremast, large enough to accommodate a lookout. It was used by whalers to watch for a blow (spout), or in icebound waters to seek a channel.
    • When Captain Sleet in person stood his mast-head in this crow’s-nest of his, he tells us that he always had a rifle with him (also fixed in the rack), together with a powder flask and shot, for the purpose of popping off the stray narwhales, or vagrant sea unicorns infesting those waters; […].1851 November 14, Herman Melville, chapter 35, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC

Forms of crow's-nest

pluralcrow's-nests

Questions about crow's-nest

What is crow's-nest the alternative spelling of?
Crow's-nest is the alternative spelling of crow's nest.

Words near crow's-nest in the dictionary

  1. crow's foot
  2. crow's nest
  3. crow's nests
  4. crow's-feet
  5. crow's-foot
  6. crow's-nest
  7. crow's-nests
  8. crow-bill
  9. crow-bills
  10. crow-black
  11. crow-eater

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: crow's-nest (page history and authors); crow's nest (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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