marlinspike
marlinspike noun: a tool, consisting of a pointed metal spike, used to manipulate the strands of rope or cable when knotting and splicing.
Noun
marlinspike (plural marlinspikes)
- 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.
- There was / that interval of moonless calm filled only / with the water's and the rigging's usual sounds, / then sudden movement, blows and snarling cries / and they had fallen on us with machete / and marlinspike.1962, Robert Hayden, “Middle Passage”, in David Lehman, editor, The Oxford Book of American Poetry, Oxford University Press, published 2006, page 585
Forms of marlinspike
| plural | marlinspikes |
|---|---|
| alternative form | marlin spike |
| alternative form | marlinespike |
| alternative form | marline spike |
| alternative form | marlingspike |
| alternative form | marling spike |
Origin of marlinspike
From marline + spike.
Questions about marlinspike
- What does marlinspike mean?
- Marlinspike means a tool, consisting of a pointed metal spike, used to manipulate the strands of rope or cable when knotting and splicing.
- What part of speech is marlinspike?
- Marlinspike is a noun.
- What is the plural of marlinspike?
- The plural of marlinspike is marlinspikes.
Words near marlinspike in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: 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: “marlinspike.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/marlinspike. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.