bowline
/ˈbəʊlɪn
/noun
1A rope attaching the weather side of a square sail to a ship’s bow.Outside the harbor, the waves were high enough that we had to grip the bowlines to keep our feet....
- She grabbed him and yanked him unceremoniously into the boat, and untied the bowline herself.
2A simple knot for forming a non-slipping loop at the end of a rope.Slip the loop of the bowstring over the nock and down the limb of the bow and tie the free end of the string to the other nock using a timber hitch, bowline or similar non-stressing knot....
- While we tied a bowline loop in the end of a rope I called, ‘What sort of shape's he in?’
- ‘A hideous thing to watch, even as a quasi-curious foreigner,’ was Thompson's initial reaction, despite his assertion that he ‘can still tie a mean bowline knot on just about anything in less than ten seconds’.
Origin
Middle English: from Middle Low German bōlīne, Middle Dutch boechlijne, from boeg 'ship's bow' + lijne 'line'.