Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A thick pad of rope-yarns, oakum, etc., covered with a mat or canvas, and tapering from the middle toward the ends, used as a fender on the bow of a boat.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun A quantity of rope-yarn, or the like, placed, as a fender, on the bow of a boat.
- noun A bunch of soft material to prevent chafing between spars, or the like.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun nautical Fibres of old
rope packed between spars, or used as afender .
Etymologies
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Examples
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These fellows, as well as thieves generally, are said to have a method of quieting the fiercest watch-dogs by throwing them a narcotic ball, which they call "puddening the animal."
The Dog William Youatt 1811
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"No, that would not exactly tell; I shall pick my own work, and that's where I can bring my tarry trousers to an anchor -- mousing the mainstay, or puddening the anchor, with the best of any.
Snarley-yow or The Dog Fiend Frederick Marryat 1820
chained_bear commented on the word puddening
"Puddening of a Boat's Stem, is a quantity of rope-yard pointed and placed firmly on the stem of the boat as a kind of fender....
"Puddening the Ring of an Anchor, is the act of well parcelling it with tarred canvas, and then warping it round with twice-laid-stuff....
"Puddening of a Mast, a thick wreath, or circle of cordage, tapering from the middle towards the ends, pointed all over, and fastened about the mainmast and foremast of a ship...."
—Falconer's New Universal Dictionary of the Marine (1816), 359–360
See also dolphin of the mast.
October 12, 2008
knitandpurl commented on the word puddening
"She bore as much resemblance to her ordinary self as the rigid bosun, sweating in a uniform coat that must have been shaped with an adze, did to the same man in his shirt-sleeves, puddening the topsail yard in a heavy swell; yet there was an essential relationship, and the snowy sweep of the deck, the painful brilliance of the two brass quarter-deck four-pounders, the precision of the cylinders in the cable-tier and the parade-ground neatness of the galley's pots and tubs all had a meaning."
Master and Commander by Patrick O'Brian, p 30 of the Norton paperback edition
July 5, 2019