rigging

Noun

rigging (countable and uncountable, plural riggings)

1. Dress; tackle; especially (nautical), the ropes, chains, etc., that support the masts and spars of a sailing vessel, and serve as purchases for adjusting the sails, etc.
   • The moon was full and shone down on us through the masts and rigging of an old fishing wreck, which had been grounded just off the beach where we were sitting.1941 March 12, Charles A. Lindbergh, The Wartime Journals of Charles A. Lindbergh, New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, published 1970, page 461
   • For a time the apostis glowed like a forge; gradually it dimmed and went out, and our ship resumed a more conventional position, though the wind still screamed in the rigging and the clouds scudded under us like flecks of foam in a mill race.1987, Gene Wolfe, chapter XXVII, in The Urth of the New Sun, 1st US edition, New York: Tor Books, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 162
2. Similar supporting material used for construction work, or in film, theater, etc.
   • […]or even, daring, spent the night up some pole in a lineman's tent like caterpillars, swung among a web of telephone wires, living in the very copper rigging and secular miracle of communication, untroubled by the dumb voltages flickering their miles, the night long, in the thousands of unheard...1966 March, Thomas Pynchon, chapter 6, in The Crying of Lot 49, New York, N.Y.: Bantam Books, published November 1976, →ISBN, page 135
3. (Japanese) The shiplike mechanical components and weaponry attached to a shipgirl.
   • Max Factory presents a figma of Nagato Kai-II from "Kantai Collection -KanColle-"! Her rigging has been carefully recreated in figma form, featuring loads of articulation to create perfect poses!2021 April 21, GoodSmile_US (@GoodSmile_US), X, archived from the original on 04 Oct 2025
4. A system of rods, levers etc. that operate a brake, notably on rail vehicles.
   • A hand parking brake operated from the adjacent cab is connected by rigging to the inner pair of wheels.1960 April, “Type "3" Diesel-Electric Locomotives for the Southern Region”, in Railway Magazine, page 239