Word.ws English Dictionary

dolphin striker

dolphin striker noun: a near-vertical spar between the bowsprit and martingale.

Noun

dolphin striker (plural dolphin strikers)

  1. A near-vertical spar between the bowsprit and martingale
    • meanwhile some of the sailors, with an imitative flying fish, get to that part of the vessel just under the bowsprit, called “the dolphin striker,” and with a bottle midway to their bait, they suddenly jerk it out of the water, to imitate the flying fish.1844, William Graeme Rhind, The Creation: A Series of Letters from a Father to His Children
    • I ordered the Captain of the forecastle, to run out on the bowsprit with the end of a two inch at once, and throw a running bowline knot over his shoulders, and by-and-by, when he broke adrift from the dolphin striker, we hauled him in by the head; and the same night or next morning, I had a good...1846, Jack's Life at Sea: By an Old Irish Captain of the Head., page 366

Examples of dolphin striker in a sentence

  • The dolphin striker is slung near the cap; and the sprit-sail gaffs near the rigging by "jaw ropes,” and supported at their ends by lifts from the bowsprit cap.1857, John McNeill Boyd, A Manual for Naval Cadets, page 173:
  • An iron band with studs for the martingale and back ropes to be fitted to is frequently used on the dolphin striker.1865, Sir George Strong Nares, Seamanship, page 71:

Forms of dolphin striker

pluraldolphin strikers

Questions about dolphin striker

What does dolphin striker mean?
Dolphin striker means a near-vertical spar between the bowsprit and martingale.
How do you use dolphin striker in a sentence?
The dolphin striker is slung near the cap; and the sprit-sail gaffs near the rigging by "jaw ropes,” and supported at their ends by lifts from the bowsprit cap.
What part of speech is dolphin striker?
Dolphin striker is a noun.
What is the plural of dolphin striker?
The plural of dolphin striker is dolphin strikers.

Words near dolphin striker in the dictionary

  1. dolphin huggers
  2. dolphin kick
  3. dolphin kicks
  4. Dolphin Sands
  5. dolphin shorts
  6. dolphin striker
  7. dolphin strikers
  8. dolphin-friendly
  9. dolphin-striker
  10. dolphin-strikers
  11. dolphinaria

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: dolphin striker (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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Cite this entry: “dolphin striker.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/dolphin_striker. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.