sounding line

American  

noun

1. a line weighted with a lead or plummet sounding lead and bearing marks to show the length paid out, used for sounding, as at sea.

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sounding line British  

noun

1. a line marked off to indicate its length and having a sounding lead at one end. It is dropped over the side of a vessel to determine the depth of the water

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Etymology

Origin of sounding line

Middle English word dating back to 1300–50

Example Sentences

They had many things in the boat but lost only two billies, two pannikins, a sounding line and Hamilton's hat, knife and pipe.

From The Home of the Blizzard Being the Story of the Australasian Antarctic Expedition, 1911-1914 by Mawson, Douglas, Sir

Indeed it was some time before its bottom could be reached by any sounding line.

From Peter Stuyvesant, the Last Dutch Governor of New Amsterdam by Abbott, John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot)

Then we've got to use a sounding line to find out in which direction the hull of the sunken derelict lies.

From The Submarine Boys' Lightning Cruise The Young Kings of the Deep by Durham, Victor G.

In fact, nothing delayed immediate departure but the consideration that two miles of sounding line were still to be hauled up from the ocean depths.

From All Around the Moon by Roth, Edward

As I was desirous to recover the long lost bottom of Walden Pond, I surveyed it carefully, before the ice broke up, early in '46, with compass and chain and sounding line.

From Walden by Thoreau, Henry David