marline
marline noun: a light all-purpose cord commonly used to bind the end of a larger rope, to prevent fraying.
Noun
marline (plural marlines)
- A light all-purpose cord commonly used to bind the end of a larger rope, to prevent fraying.
- 1749 (Sunday 26th May), John Newton's journal
A young man, who has been the whole voyage out of irons, first on account of a large ulcer, and since for his seeming good behaviour, gave them a large marline spike down the gratings, but was happily seen by one of the people.
- 1749 (Sunday 26th May), John Newton's journal
- Twine used similarly.
Verb
marline (third-person singular simple present marlines, present participle marlining, simple past and past participle marlined)
- To wind marline around.
- to marline a rope
- Synonyms:
- marl
Synonyms of marline
Forms of marline
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | marlines |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | marlines |
| present participle | marlining |
| past participle | marlined |
| past | marlined |
Origin of marline
From Middle English merlin, from Middle Low German marling, from Middle Dutch marlijn (“cord”), from marlen (“secure, fasten”), frequentative of maren (“to moor”), from Proto-Germanic *mairōną (“to moor, fasten to”), from Proto-Indo-European *mer-.
Words formed from marline
Phrases with marline
Questions about marline
- What does marline mean?
- Marline means a light all-purpose cord commonly used to bind the end of a larger rope, to prevent fraying.
- What part of speech is marline?
- Marline can be a noun or a verb.
- What is the plural of marline?
- The plural of marline is marlines.
Words near marline in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: marline (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.
Last updated:
Cite this entry: “marline.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/marline. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.