pierhead

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English

Etymology

From pier +‎ head.

Noun

pierhead (plural pierheads)

  1. The end of a pier farthest from shore. [from 17th c.]
    • 1976, Angela Carter, ‘My Father's House’, in Shaking a Leg, Vintage 2013, p. 21:
      It came floating like a tethered cloud past the little white toy-like lighthouse at the pierhead.
    • 1996, Jim Hewitson, Clinging to the Edge: Journals from an Orkney Island, page 41:
      Here on Papay folk will speak slowly and sympathetically in a one-to-one conversation with a 'soothmoother', but if you're on the fringes of a pierhead debate about the price of cattle or the weather, then you'll soon be submerged beneath a fast-flowing terminological tidal wave.

Derived terms

Translations