Word.ws English Dictionary

marline spike

marline spike is the alternative spelling of marlinspike.

Meaning of marlinspike

Noun

marlinspike (plural marlinspikes)

  1. A tool, consisting of a pointed metal spike, used to manipulate the strands of rope or cable when knotting and splicing.
    • […] the afterguard, of whom they have but a sorry opinion, chiefly landsmen, never going aloft except to reef or furl the mainsail and in no wise competent to handle a marlinspike or turn in a dead-eye, say.1924, Herman Melville, chapter 12, in Billy Budd, London: Constable & Co.

Forms of marline spike

pluralmarline spikes

Questions about marline spike

What is marline spike the alternative spelling of?
Marline spike is the alternative spelling of marlinspike.

Words near marline spike in the dictionary

  1. marlin spike
  2. marlin spikes
  3. marlin-spike
  4. marlin-spikes
  5. marline
  6. marline spike
  7. marline spikes
  8. marlined
  9. marlines
  10. marlinespike
  11. marlinespikes

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: marline spike (page history and authors); marlinspike (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: “marline spike.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/marline_spike. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.