rombowline

English

Alternative forms

• rumbowline, rhumbowline

Etymology

Uncertain.

Noun

rombowline (uncountable)

1. (nautical) Old, condemned canvas, rope, etc., unfit for use except in chafing gear.
   • 1909, F. Marion Crawford, chapter XX, in Stradella: An Old Italian Love Tale, London: Macmillan and Co., →OCLC, page 348:

     It has probably been destroyed altogether, but Rome is a great place for treasuring rubbish and rombowline, and perhaps the old keyboard still exists, with stacks of wooden and metal pipes and bundles of worm- eaten trackers, all piled up together and forgotten in some corner of the crypt, or in some high belfry room or long-closed attic above the gorgeous ceiling of the Basilica.

   • 1929, Viola Irene Cooper, Windjamming to Fiji, New York: A. L. Burt Company, →OCLC, page 114:

     The port and starboard walls were lined with three-tiered berths so close together that the occupant must enter by assuming a half sitting, half reclining position. In front of each hung a shabby bit of rombowline, dating from antiquity. It is used to keep out the air at night and the light during the day when the sailors sleep.

Further reading

• “rombowline”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.
• John A. Simpson and Edmund S. C. Weiner, editors (1989), “rombowline”, in The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition, Oxford: Clarendon Press, →ISBN.
• “rombowline”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.