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trail rope

American  

noun

  1. a guide rope on an aerostat.


trail rope British  

noun

  1. another name for dragrope

  2. a long rope formerly used for various military purposes, esp to allow a vehicle, horses, or men to pull a gun carriage

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Etymology

Origin of trail rope

An Americanism dating back to 1840–50

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.

My blind roommate and I hook arms and help each other find the trail rope that sporadically disappears in places, and we make it there and back, triumphant.

From New York Times • Sep. 14, 1454

As the waves came even closer to his perch, Joseph dumped the last of his sand ballast and busied himself cutting up his trail rope to throw that out piece by piece.

From Time Magazine Archive

We rode up to the front of the principal one, dismounted, and hitched our horses by dropping the trail rope to the ground.

From Memoirs of Orange Jacobs by Jacobs, Orange

The other end of the rope has an eye, and is fitted to slide down the main trail rope and catch on a knot at the end.

From British Airships, Past, Present, and Future by Whale, George

On emerging, however, below the cloud, the first object that loomed out of the mist immediately below us was a cargo vessel, in the rigging of which our trail rope was entangling itself.

From The Dominion of the Air; the story of aerial navigation by Bacon, John Mackenzie

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