hawse

• POS: Noun, Verb (intransitive)

CIDE DICTIONARY

hawse, n. [Orig. a hawse hole, or hole in the bow of the ship; cf. Icel. hals, hāls, neck, part of the bows of a ship, AS. heals neck. See Collar, and cf. Halse to embrace.].

•  A hawse hole.  Harris.  [1913 Webster]
•  The situation of the cables when a vessel is moored with two anchors, one on the starboard, the other on the port bow.  [1913 Webster]

Athwart hawse. See under Athwart. -- Foul hawse, a hawse in which the cables cross each other, or are twisted together. -- Hawse block, a block used to stop up a hawse hole at sea; -- called also hawse plug. -- Hawse piece, one of the foremost timbers of a ship, through which the hawse hole is cut. -- Hawse plug. Same as Hawse block (above). -- To come in at the hawse holes, to enter the naval service at the lowest grade. [Cant] -- To freshen the hawse, to veer out a little more cable and bring the chafe and strain on another part.

OXFORD DICTIONARY

hawse, n.
1 the part of a ship's bows in which hawse-holes or hawse-pipes are placed.
2 the space between the head of an anchored vessel and the anchors.
3 the arrangement of cables when a ship is moored with port and starboard forward anchors.

Idiom

hawse-hole a hole in the side of a ship through which a cable or anchor-rope passes. hawse-pipe a metal pipe lining a hawse-hole.

Etymology

ME halse, prob. f. ON h{aacute}ls neck, ship's bow