rope yarn

See also: ropeyarn

English

Noun

rope yarn (countable and uncountable, plural rope yarns)

1. The yarn or thread composing the strands of a rope.
   • 1851 November 14, Herman Melville, “chapter 13”, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC:

     Sideways leaning, we sideways darted; every ropeyarn tingling like a wire; the two tall masts buckling like Indian canes in land tornadoes.

2. A yarn of fibers, twisted up loosely and right-handedly.
   • 1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter VIII, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y., London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC:

     That concertina was a wonder in its way. The handles that was on it first was wore out long ago, and he'd made new ones of braided rope yarn. And the bellows was patched in more places than a cranberry picker's overalls.

Derived terms

• Rope Yarn Sunday

References

• Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary, Springfield, Massachusetts, G.&C. Merriam Co., 1967