English

Alternative forms

• marlin spike
• marlinespike
• marline spike
• marlingspike
• marling spike

Noun

marlinspike ‎(plural marlinspikes)

1. A tool, consisting of a pointed metal spike, used to manipulate the strands of rope or cable when knotting and splicing
   • 1924, Herman Melville, Billy Budd, London: Constable & Co., Chapter 12,

     […] the afterguard, of whom they have but a sorry opinion, chiefly landsmen, never going aloft except to reef or furl the mainsail and in no wise competent to handle a marlinspike or turn in a dead-eye, say.

   • 1962, Robert Hayden, "Middle Passage" in The Oxford Book of American Poetry edited by David Lehman, Oxford University Press, 2006, p. 585,

     There was / that interval of moonless calm filled only / with the water's and the rigging's usual sounds, / then sudden movement, blows and snarling cries / and they had fallen on us with machete / and marlinspike.

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