heaving line
1
8.3
- noun
- Specialized
:
cuerda de lanzamiento
- I coiled the heaving line and threw it.
- throw a heaving line
Examples
-
Get the heaving lines ready.
-
He said he preferred a wire rope, and he would send the eye of it to me with the heaving line.
Fiction book (1991) -
I told him to stand by to take a heaving line, make it fast to his anchor cable, and let out a hundred feet of scope between us to make a towing line.
Fiction book (1991) -
I shouted to the man that he had one more pair of bitts, and I would send my manila anchor cable to him with the heaving line.
Fiction book (1991) -
By the time he had clapped his wire on a pair of his forward bitts and made fast the heaving line to the other eye, the wind had turned us so that one of the pair of bitts on our stern was handy to secure it.
Fiction book (1991) -
In the rising wind, it took five minutes to maneuver so as to put the heaving line athwart the other barge again, and the line drifted far forward with the wind until it hung up on the vessel's ramp.
Fiction book (1991) -
One sailor skillfully threw the heaving line to help the crew transfer cargo to the dock.
-
The captain instructed the crew to prepare the heaving line for mooring the ship.
-
After securing the heaving line, we successfully joined the vessels at sea.
Synonyms
∞
1.1
A long thin rope or wire used to carry things
How Heavy
Surface Forms
Morphology
The compound is transparently built from 'heaving' (lifting/throwing) + 'line' (a rope), so a learner who knows both words can infer it is a rope used for heaving or throwing. This noun+noun composition is a regular, compositional pattern (though maritime-specific), making the meaning predictable to B1 learners familiar with the constituents.
Etymology
Heaving line, from the words heaving and line, is a light line with a weight at the end that sailors 'heave', or 'throw', to another ship or to shore. Because the small rope is sent first to pull a larger rope across, the term now means a rope used to 'transfer' heavier lines.