Also 8 (? erron.) walled knot. [The first element is of obscure origin. The word is found in mod. Scandinavian langs.: Sw., Norw. valknut, Da. valknude, double knot, secure knot (not confined to nautical use); in Norw. also the gammadion or swastika. Cf. Ger. waldknoten (as if ‘wood-knot,’ prob. a popular etymology), in hunting language, a double knot.] A secure knot made on the end of a rope by unlaying and intertwining the strands.
1627. Capt. J. Smith, Sea Gram., v. 27. The Wall knot … is a round knot, so made with the strouds [read stronds] or layes of a rope, it cannot slip.
1644. Manwayring, Sea-mans Dict., 70. Nippers are small roapes … with a little Truck at one end (or some have only a wale-knot).
1769. Falconer, Dict. Marine (1780), Wale-knot, or Wall-knot, a particular sort of large knot raised upon the end of a rope, by untwisting the strands.
1773. Emerson, Princ. Mech. (ed. 3), 166. A wale knot is made with the three strands of a rope, so that it cannot slip.
1788. Clarkson, Impolicy of Slave Trade, 46. The captain took up the cat, which was a rope … with nine tails at one end of it, and a double walled knot of nearly eight inches in circumference at the other. He beat him alternately with each end.
1867. Smyth, Sailor’s Word-bk., Double Wall-knot, with or without a crown, or a double crown, is made by intertwisting the unlaid ends of a rope in a peculiar manner.
1883. Man. Seamanship (1886), 121. A single-wall knot…. A double-wall…. A double-wall, double-crowned.
