lubber's hole Naut.
Also 8 lubber-hole.
A hole in the ship's top, close to the mast, affording an easier way of ascent or descent than by climbing the futtock shrouds.
| 1772–84 Cook Voy. (1790) VI. 1194 He becomes as much an object of ridicule, as a sailor who descends through lubber's hole. 1792 Wolcot (P. Pindar) Peter's Prophecy Wks. 1792 III. 75 And yet, Sir Joseph, fame reports you stole To Fortune's topmast through the lubber-hole. 1833 Marryat P. Simple vii, He proposed that I should go through lubber's hole. 1882 Nares Seamanship (ed. 6) 233 Pass a hawser..through the lubber's hole. |