- present participle of rig.
rigging
Americannoun
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the ropes, chains, etc., employed to support and work the masts, yards, sails, etc., on a ship.
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lifting or hauling tackle.
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Informal. clothing.
noun
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the shrouds, stays, halyards, etc, of a vessel
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the bracing wires, struts, and lines of a biplane, balloon, etc
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any form of lifting gear, tackle, etc
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of rigging
Explanation
Everything on a sailboat or ship that holds the sails up is its rigging. The rigging typically includes masts and ropes. Sometimes the term rigging is used for just about everything on a sailing vessel, including the sails themselves. You can also use this noun for the process of adjusting or setting up these parts, either on a ship or an airship, parachute, or hang-glider. Rigging comes from the verb rig, which was originally nautical and meant just "to fit with sails."
Vocabulary lists containing rigging
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:
Meta, meanwhile, is still going strong but has experienced its own earthquakes: from privacy scandals and election rigging accusations to teen mental health crises and toxic online harms.
From BBC ● Jun. 4, 2026
Criminal antitrust cases are typically reserved for allegations of price fixing, market collusion or competitors rigging their bids to customers.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 20, 2026
Instead, they were allegedly responsible for the outright rigging of games—and persuaded more than three dozen players to go along with it.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 15, 2026
The controversy around Ms Dzafce is a postscript to a chaotic Miss Universe pageant hosted in Thailand that had been hounded by walkouts and allegations of rigging.
From BBC ● Dec. 16, 2025
“I’ll go start rigging up the bug,” Roy said.
From "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" by Philip K. Dick
Instead, firefighters responded to the scene with ropes and riggings and rappelled down to the man’s location.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 15, 2022
After boarding their ships, the players unfurled sails, turned rudders, and climbed riggings to move between a series of tropical islands, climbing ashore to explore the new locations.
From The Verge ● Jun. 13, 2016
They accurately rendered the steeples of churches where foreigners worshiped amid pagodas, as well as international flags flying over colonnaded wharf buildings and ship riggings.
From New York Times ● Jan. 14, 2016
The pulleys and riggings of the mine at night, after the first snow.
From The New Yorker ● Aug. 12, 2015
Imagine that by some miracle of dread or reverence they lowered their spyglasses, turned, set their riggings, sailed on.
From "The Poisonwood Bible" by Barbara Kingsolver
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.
