rope laddern.
/ˈrəʊp ˌladə/, U.S. /ˈroʊp ˌlædər/ A ladder made of two long pieces of rope connected at intervals by short crosspieces of rope, wood, metal, etc. Also in extended use.
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society > occupation and work > equipment > ladder > [noun] > other ladders
rope ladder1658
tackling-ladder1680
Indian ladder1715
peg ladder1854
hook-ladder1858
cat-ladder1883
1658 J. Davies tr. H. D'Urfé Astrea III. 422 I contrived it so, that poor Silvander appointed a certain hour in the night when he would come, and that he should come up a rope-ladder in at a window.
1678 J. Phillips tr. J.-B. Tavernier Indian Trav. i. xiv. 82 in tr. J.-B. Tavernier Six Voy. The young man..had bethought himself of Rope-Ladders to get over the two Walls.
1704 London Gaz. No. 4008/2 Others climbed over the Walls by the help of some Rope-Ladders.
1788 E. Gibbon Decline & Fall V. lvi. 618 At the dead of night several rope-ladders were dropped from the walls.
1817 W. Kirby & W. Spence Introd. Entomol. (1818) II. xxii. 291 It consists of little silken threads, which it has spun in a zigzag direction, forming a rope-ladder.
1875 E. H. Knight Amer. Mech. Dict. III. 1980/1 Rope ladders are employed for enabling persons to ascend and descend from the deck of a ship or from her booms into boats alongside.
1927 Blackwood's Mag. Oct. 457/1 Mounting the rope ladder in that awful sea..proved a bit of a task.
1992 B. Unsworth Sacred Hunger xlvi. 499 Inviolate here, high in the branches, his rope ladder drawn up and coiled on the lashed driftwood of the platform, he felt the solitude like an accustomed drug in his veins.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, November 2010; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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n.1658