Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A small anchor with three or more flukes, especially one used for anchoring a small vessel.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A mechanical device consisting essentially of one or more hooks or clamps, used for grasping or holding something; a grapple; a grappling-iron.
- noun Specifically A grappling-iron, used to seize and hold one ship to another in engagements preparatory to boarding. Also called
grappling . - noun A boat's anchor having from three to six flukes placed at equal distances about the end of the shank. Also
grapline . - noun A kind of heavy tongs used for hauling logs, stones, etc.
- noun A device for grasping or taking hold of something not otherwise manageable or accessible, as for gripping and recovering tools in a bored well, for raising the core left by a diamond drill, for seizing a submarine telegraph-cable which needs repairs, etc.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Naut.) A small anchor, with four or five flukes or claws, used to hold boats or small vessels; hence, any instrument designed to grapple or hold; a grappling iron; a grab; -- written also
grapline , andcrapnel .
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun nautical A small
anchor , having more than twoflukes , used for anchoring a small vessel. - noun nautical A
grappling iron .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a tool consisting of several hooks for grasping and holding; often thrown with a rope
- noun a light anchor for small boats
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
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Examples
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The grapnel is a small anchor, made like four pot-hooks tied back to back.
Heroes of the Telegraph John Munro 1889
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But here, in Arkham City, the grapnel is a star, embracing the sprawling chunk of quarantined Gotham that Batman now prowls, catapulting you across its scrum of industrial brick, filth and rampant criminality.
Telegraph.co.uk - Telegraph online, Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph Tom Hoggins 2011
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And don't forget - we'd have to send up some kind of grapnel as well, if we want the end to stay up there. '
Of Time and Stars Clarke, Arthur C. 1972
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"Oh! we call a small kind of grapnel, or four-armed anchor, a creeper," said Will.
Menhardoc George Manville Fenn 1870
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It's the first large anchor that divers have retrieved; they earlier brought up a small, grapnel anchor.
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It's the first large anchor that divers have retrieved; they earlier brought up a small, grapnel anchor.
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It's the first large anchor that divers have retrieved; they earlier brought up a small, grapnel anchor.
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It's the first large anchor that divers have retrieved; they earlier brought up a small, grapnel anchor.
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There were no handholds on the rock face, and we had to use a grapnel.
Tin 2010
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Rhegians, sailing up to them, and seeing that the crews were not there, fell upon the empty vessels, but an iron grapnel was thrown out at them, and they in their turn lost a ship, from which the crew escaped by swimming.
The History of the Peloponnesian War Thucydides 2007
chained_bear commented on the word grapnel
"'Halley? Comet Halley, the Astronomer Royal?'
"'Just so.'
"...I have an amazing respect for him, of course. Such an observer! Such a calculator! But I had no idea he was concerned with diving-bells.'
"'Yet I told you of his paper, Art of Living under Water... and you commended my desire to walk upon the bottom of the sea. You said it would be a better way of finding lost anchors and cables than creeping for them with a grapnel.'"
--Patrick O'Brian, Treason's Harbour, 67
February 15, 2008
yarb commented on the word grapnel
With anxious grapnels I had sounded my pocket, and only brought up a few pieces of silver...
- Melville, Moby-Dick, ch. 2
July 23, 2008