Word.ws English Dictionary

marlinespike

marlinespike 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 marlinespike

pluralmarlinespikes

Questions about marlinespike

What is marlinespike the alternative spelling of?
Marlinespike is the alternative spelling of marlinspike.

Words near marlinespike in the dictionary

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

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: marlinespike (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: “marlinespike.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/marlinespike. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.