hawse

American  

[hawz, haws] / hɔz, hɔs /

noun

1. the part of a bow where the hawseholes are located.

2. a hawsehole or hawsepipe.

3. the distance or space between the bow of an anchored vessel and the point on the surface of the water above the anchor.

4. the relative position or arrangement of the port and starboard anchor cables when both are used to moor a vessel.

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verb (used without object)

hawsed, hawsing

1. (of a vessel) to pitch heavily at anchor.

idioms

1. to hawse, with both bow anchors out.

   a ship riding to hawse.

hawse British  

/ hɔːz /

noun

1. the part of the bows of a vessel where the hawseholes are

2. short for hawsehole hawsepipe

3. the distance from the bow of an anchored vessel to the anchor

4. the arrangement of port and starboard anchor ropes when a vessel is riding on both anchors

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verb

1. (intr) (of a vessel) to pitch violently when at anchor

Etymology

Origin of hawse

before 1000; Middle English hals, Old English heals bow of a ship, literally, neck; cognate with Old Norse hals in same senses, Old Frisian, Old Saxon, Old High German hals neck, throat, Latin collus (< *kolsos )

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

hawse hawsed hawsing

At sundown, Davy Jones boarded the ship through a hawse pipe.

From Time Magazine Archive

The stainless-steel hawse pipes feature integrated cup holders that keep a beverage from spilling when the adjacent rod goes off.

From Time Magazine Archive

It was rough and scouring, like rusty anchor chain reeling through a hawse.

From "Strange the Dreamer" by Laini Taylor

Now—you're so brave—either you ride that Dunbar hawse the way you said or we kick you out o' camp!

From Bat Wing Bowles by Dane Coolidge

Make me as big and open as the plains, As honest as the hawse between my knees, Clean as the wind that blows behind the rains, Free as the hawk that circles down the breeze!

From Sun and Saddle Leather Including Grass Grown Trails and New Poems by Badger Clark

The sayles ar hawsed, a pleasant cole dothe blowe.

From The Ship of Fools, Volume 1 by Alexander Barclay

Instead of setting to leeward, the schooner was now meeting a powerful tide of some four or five knots, which hawsed her up to windward with irresistible force.

From The Sea Lions The Lost Sealers by James Fenimore Cooper

I thought that the flood had made, and that it took us a little on our lee-bow, hawsing us up to windward.

From Afloat and Ashore A Sea Tale by James Fenimore Cooper

She was beating down against the sea-breeze, with a strong current under her lee bow hawsing her up to windward, and was making very rapid progress.

From A Middy of the Slave Squadron A West African Story by D.L. Mays