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Glite Dictionary
📰 Publication details 🚢 Top of mast
masthead

masthead

1 8.1
The top part of a ship's mast used for a flag or a lookout
  • noun
  • /ˈmæstˌhɛd/
  • Specialized
translation icon : pico del mástil
  • The square sail on the forward mast snapped in the breeze, its long cordelle dangling like a tree snake from the masthead to the deck.
  • masthead light
  • top of the masthead

Examples

  • I'll luff her when you reach the masthead.

    Captains Courageous (1937)

  • When a man got to the masthead, he would come slowly down again to get something that he had forgotten. (Richard Henry Dana, Two Years Before the Mast)

    Academic text (2006)

  • You may make yourself comfortable at the masthead, Mr. Young.

    Mutiny on the Bounty (1962)

  • Get to the masthead and stay there until I call you down.

    Mutiny on the Bounty (1935)

  • The view from the top of the masthead, however, is quite different.

    Academic text (2009)

  • I think I see it up there on the masthead still.

    Blog text (32)

  • The masthead is no place for novices.

    Mutiny on the Bounty (1962)

  • At dawn, just before 6:00... Torstein came hurrying down from the masthead.

    Badlands (1974)

  • Suddenly a cry from the masthead: SAILOR (O.S.) Tierra...!

    Fiction book (1992)

  • The sailor climbed to the masthead to get a better view of the horizon.

How High

masthead
  • Specialized
1 8.1
aloft
3 7.4
on board
513 1.8
below decks
4 4.6

Surface Forms

masthead singular
mastheads plural

Morphology

masthead = mast + head (transparent) = mast + head

Literal compound of 'mast' + 'head'; the meaning 'highest part of a mast' follows directly from the components.

Etymology

Masthead comes from the parts mast and head, where head means 'top' and mast is the tall pole on a ship; it is the 'top of the mast' where a flag or lookout would be. So masthead means the highest part of a ship's mast.