Definitions
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. One who goes before; a forerunner.
- n. In whaling, a piece of rope, of the same kind as the tow-line, made fast to the shank of a toggle-iron or harpoon, with an eye-splice in one end: so called by English and Scotch whalemen, more frequently by Americans the strap or iron-strap. The process of adjusting this rope to the iron is known to the latter as strapping, to the former as spanning.
Wiktionary
- n. One who or that which goes before; a forerunner; a harbinger; a predecessor.
- n. nautical A short rope grafted on a harpoon, to which a longer line may be attached.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. (Naut.) A short rope grafted on a harpoon, to which a longer line may be attached.
Etymologies
- From Middle English foreganger, from Old English *foregangere, from foregangan ("to go before, precede, go in front of, project, excel"), equivalent to fore- + ganger. Cognate with Scots foregangare ("a foregoer"), Dutch voorganger ("a predecessor, progenitor"), German Vorgänger ("a predecessor, precursor"), Swedish föregångare ("a forerunner, precursor, progenitor"). (Wiktionary)
Examples
“A piece of small, but stout line, called, I think, the foreganger, is spliced securely to the shank of the harpoon.”
“The rope, before being made fast to the foreganger, is rove through a block attached to some part of the bowsprit, or to the foremost swifter of the fore-rigging; a gang of hands are always ready to take hold of the end, and run the fish right out of the water when pierced by the iron.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘foreganger’.
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Fore!
That great old English prefix, quaint almost by default!
foredoom, forename, foretoken, foremast, forebear, foresee, forecastle, forestay, foreskin, foretell, foreshadow, foreclose and 79 more...
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whaling terms
Terms defined in the glossary of Clifford W. Ashley's "Yankee Whaler".
advance, adze, after house, after oar, agent, air up, alow, ambergris, apeak, article, away, bailer and 299 more...
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