ridge polen.

1657 R. Ligon True Hist. Barbados 103 I would have the roomes Archt over with stone, and the innermost poynts of the Arches, to rest upon the Pillars, and the whole house to be cover'd with Couples and Rafters, and upon that shingles, the Ridge Pole of the house: running along over the Pillars so that the covering is to serve both Arches, that covers your rooms.

1697 W. Dampier New Voy. around World xv. 428 These people make but small low Houses. The sides, which are made of small posts, watled with boughs, are not above 4 foot and an half high: the ridge pole is about 7 or 8 foot high.

1737 T. Salmon Mod. Hist. XXIX. i. 67 Their Furniture consists of little more than the Hammocks they sleep in (which are somtimes fastned to the Ridge-poles of their Houses, and as often to the Trees without Doors).

1745 Christ Church Parish Vestry Bk. in C. R. Lounsbury Illustr. Gloss. Early Southern Archit. & Landscape 308 The Gable ends of the Glebe House [are] to be Brickt up..to the ridge pole.

1797 J. Hawkins Hist. Voy. Coast Afr. (ed. 2) 74 Longer timbers are raised about the middle, and what may be called a ridge pole, consisting of one slender timber, firmly lashed above throughout the whole length.

1814 Weekly Reg. 5 322/2 At the time I left the boat the waters were about midway on the roofs of the houses generally, and quite to the ridge poles of several.

1863 N. Hawthorne Our Old Home I. 106 They are mostly of the timber-and-plaster kind, with bowed and decrepit ridge-poles.

1881 F. Young Every Man his own Mechanic §1332. 614 The rafters are notched on to the wall plates..at their lower end, while the upper end of each is rested against the ridge-pole.

1900 J. de F. Shelton Salt-box House i. 17 The ridge-pole was set far to the front, from which a short roof sloped..down to the outer line of the ceiling of the ground floor.

1955 E. Pound Classic Anthol. iii. 184 High, pine-covered peak full of echos, Proud ridge-pole of Heaven.

2008 New Yorker 5 May 71/2 He saw that frost heaves had tipped the stone over and that the ridgepole of the roof had broken under a heavy weight of snow.

1729 J. Braithwaite Hist. Revol. in Morocco 139 The Tent..was made of Camel's Hair, something like our coarse Hair-Cloths to lay over Goods, supported in the middle by a Ridge-pole, laid over two-forked Sticks.

1770 Soldier's Jrnl. 5 Every tent, or six men, have an hatchet, and a mallett for driving the tent pins into the ground, two standard poles, a ridge pole, and a large kettle.

1788 J. May Jrnl. 3 May (1873) (modernized text) 29 We..began to ascend Alleghana... At ten o'clock to-day we were on the ridge-pole.

1828 J. M. Spearman Brit. Gunner 391 Captain's Marquee. Ridge-pole, length 6 ft. 11 in.

1855 H. W. Longfellow Hiawatha xiii. 183 Tied him fast..To the ridge-pole of his wigwam.

1894 A. Robertson Nuggets 27 The sun was..shining cheerily through the thin canvas. Three magpies were chattering on the ridge-pole.

1930 E. M. Brent-Dyer Chalet Girls in Camp v. 75 The two big tents for the commissariat and recreation tents had ridge-poles.

1976 B. MacMahon End of World 34 The shelter was a crude one—a dirty canvas sheet slung over a ridge-pole held three feet above the ground by a few curved sally rods.

2007 Sunday Age (Melbourne) (Nexis) 2 Dec. (Suppl.) 50 The old-style tent with ridge pole, tie-down guy ropes, knock-in pegs and canvas..has almost gone to tent heaven.

1885 T. Roosevelt Hunting Trips 306 The forest was composed mainly of what are called ridge-pole pines, which..do not branch out until the stems are thirty or forty feet from the ground.

1891 Cent. Dict. at Tamarack 2. The abundant black or ridge-pole pine, Pinus Murrayana.

1962 Lake Charles Amer. Press 21 Sept. 6/3 The top of a ridgepole pine snapped in the wind.

2003 B. Wright Plain Lang. viii. 148 The only thing that prevented the car's headlong descent into a ravine was a slender ridgepole pine.

1861 Times 10 July 5/2 A few ridge-poled tents, pitched under the shade of some trees.

1961 Amer. Jrnl. Archeol. 65 72/2 It is the timber construction of the double sloping ridge-poled roof over so wide a span that is the most striking aspect of the building.