variant of RING-BOLT. Also † Wrain-stave, a staff for inserting in an eye of this.
1750. Blanckley, Naval Expos., 17. Wrain Bolts. [Each] has a ring at one End for a Staff to go through, [etc.]. Ibid., 190. Wrain Staves are a Sort of thick Billets, tapered so at each End that they may go into the Ring of the Wrain Bolt. [Hence in Rees’ Cycl. (1819); Young, Naut. Dict. (1846); Smyth, Sailor’s Word-bk. (1867); etc.]
Hence † Wraining-bolt, -staff. Obs.–1
1769. Falconer, Dict. Marine (1776), Antoit, a crooked instrument of iron, used to bind the side-planks round the timbers in ship building. The English artificers perform this operation by wraining-bolts and staffs.
