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Glite Dictionary
boatswain's chair

boatswain's chair

9.8
A strong seat hung by ropes to hold a person working high on a ship
  • noun
  • /ˈboʊtswənz tʃɛr/
  • Specialized
translation icon : silla de contramaestre
  • E. Frank Farrington, a strong, wiry man almost sixty years old, was being strapped into a boatswain's chair on the lip of the Brooklyn anchorage, eighty feet above the street.

Examples

  • The bridge's master mechanic, E. F. Farrington, was selected to ride the traveler in a boatswain's chair and become the first man to cross the East River in such a fashion.

    Fiction book (1995)

  • To perform maintenance on the mast, the sailor carefully climbed into a boatswain's chair suspended from the ropes.

  • The technician was lifted high above the deck in a boatswain's chair to inspect the rigging of the sailboat.

  • Using a boatswain's chair, the crew member was safely hoisted to the top of the tall ship to carry out repairs.

Synonyms

bosun's chair
vsboatswain's chair
  • Specialized
9.6

A seat hung from ropes that holds a person while they work high above, for example on a ship

has the same meaning but uses a different spelling and shorter form

How Safe

boatswain's chair
  • Specialized
9.8

Surface Forms

boatswain's chair singular
boatswain's chairs plural

Morphology

boatswain's + chair

The phrase is compositionally built from a possessive noun + 'chair', so a learner who knows 'boatswain' (a ship's officer) and 'chair' would infer a ship-related seat, but they would not reliably derive the specific technical meaning of a suspended board used to work aloft. The low frequency and nautical specificity of 'boatswain' plus the specialized functional sense of the compound make the relation only partially transparent.

Etymology

The noun boatswain's chair is a strong wooden chair hung by ropes so a boatswain can be lifted up the mast or over the ship's side. So, the name came to mean 'a seat hung by ropes to hold a person while they work high on the ship'.