holystone
Americannoun
verb (used with object)
noun
verb
Etymology
Origin of holystone
1815–25; holy + stone; perhaps originally jocular or profane
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Nevertheless, there were always corners where the holystone had to be applied by hand.
From Time Magazine Archive
In the U. S. Navy the holystone has been used since the Government first built ships.
From Time Magazine Archive
But last week the holystone passed out of U. S. Naval tradition.
From Time Magazine Archive
To say that her decks were as white as snow would be to talk figuratively, but literally they were as white as cocoanut husk and holystone could make them.
From Wild Life in the Land of the Giants A Tale of Two Brothers by Gordon Stables
The holystone is a large, soft stone, smooth on the bottom, with long ropes attached to each end, by which the crew keep it sliding fore and aft over the wet sanded decks.
From Two Years Before the Mast by Richard Henry Dana
A third WPA crew, he was told, had got at a bronze Washington in front of Independence Hall, holystoned away every trace of its treasured greenish mold.
From Time Magazine Archive
Dingy decks were holystoned white, and the rigging was taut, tarred, and dressed in its chafing gear.
From "Carry On, Mr. Bowditch" by Jean Lee Latham
The decks were as dirty as if they had not been holystoned or swept all that time; not a sail was properly set, not a rope flemished down.
From The Pirate of the Mediterranean A Tale of the Sea by F.C. Tilney
And it bore little or no resemblance to the book as we have it now—now that the salaried polisher has holystoned all of the genuine Eddyties out of it.
From The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg and Other Stories by Mark Twain
Decks are no longer holystoned, but the cable still supplies the captain with opportunity to attest a pious respect for the divine ordinance.
From The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce
Each of the crew of six boys who manned the Indra had paid $1,500 for the privilege of rigging her sails, holystoning her decks, polishing her brass every morning until June.
From Time Magazine Archive
Formerly applied by seamen on hands and knees, holystoning is now performed with long-handled implements, mopwise.
From Time Magazine Archive
So I went inside to where he was holystoning the taproom table.
From "My Brother Sam is Dead" by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier
On the third morning Katy woke and dressed so early, that she gained the deck before the sailors had finished their scrubbing and holystoning.
From What Katy Did Next by Susan Coolidge
The boards began to whiten with the holystoning.
From A Boy's Voyage Round the World by Samuel Smiles
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
