Naut. Forms: 4 bouline, bawelyne, 5 bowelyne, 5–6 bowlyne, 6 boulene, bolyn, bollene, bollinge, 6–9 bowling, 7 bolin(e, bow-lin, boulin, bowline, 7–8 boling, 8–9 bow-line, 6– bowline. [In sense 1, in most modern Teutonic langs.: Sw. boglina, Da. bovline, Du. boeglijn, Ger. bulien; whence also F. bouline, It., Sp., Pg. bolina. In all the Teut. langs. it is connected in form with the ship’s BOW, which seems to be the derivation; though, as it is found in Eng. several centuries before bow, it does not appear whence we received it, nor why the pronunciation does not agree with that of BOW.]
(The alleged ON. bóglína occurs only in the pulur, a rhymed glossary composed prob. in Orkney, and full of foreign terms).
I. 1. A rope passing from about the middle of the perpendicular edge on the weather side of the square sails (to which it is fastened by three or four subdivisions, called ‘bridles’) to the larboard or starboard bow, for the purpose of keeping the edge of the sail steady when sailing on a wind.
c. 1325. E. E. Allit. P., C. 104. Sprude spak to þe sprete þe spare bawe-lyne.
c. 1330. R. Brunne, Chron. (K.O.), Bouline.
c. 1450. Pilgrim’s Sea-Voy., 25, in Stacions Rome (1867), 38. Hale the bowelyne! now, vere the shete.
1549. Compl. Scot., vi. 40. Hail out the mane sail boulene.
1594. Greene, Look. Glasse (1861), 134. We sail’d amain and let the bowling fly.
1622. Heylin, Cosmogr., IV. (1682), 87. That piece of Tackle which our Mariners now called the Bolin.
1641. B. Jonson, Discov. (1923), 73. Tell them of the maine sheat, and the Boulin.
1666. Lond. Gaz., No. 31/1. Without cutting his Bowlings, or discharging one Gun.
1773. Gentl. Mag., 143. I haul’d up my bowlines, and to the wind laid.
1832. Marryat, N. Forster, xlvii. Let go the main-top bowling.
2. Short for bowline-knot (see 4).
1823. J. F. Cooper, Pioneer, xxiv. (1869), 107/2. It would have been more ship-shape to lower the bight of a rope, or running bow-line below me.
3. On a bowline: said of a ship when close-hauled, (i.e., with the bow-line) so as to sail close to the wind.
1625. Purchas, Pilgrimes, IV. 1174. The wind was so narrow that we stood upon a bowling.
1840. R. H. Dana, Bef. Mast, x. 24. We were … obliged to … come upon a taut bowline.
1834. M. Scott, Cruise Midge (1859), 480. Running in for San Andreas on a bowline.
1867. Smyth, Sailor’s Word-bk., s.v., The ship sails on a bowline, or stands on a taut bowline.
4. Comb.: bowline-bend, a mode of fastening ropes together with two bow-line knots; bowline-bridle (see 1); bowline-cringle, an eye through which a bowline-bridle is fastened; bowline-knot, a simple but very secure knot, used in fastening the bowline-bridles to the cringles.
c. 1860. H. Stuart, Seaman’s Catech., 44. A fore course has one *bowline bridle and two cringles.
1627. Capt. Smith, Seaman’s Gram., v. 27. The *Boling knot is … fastened by the bridles into the creengles of the sailes.
1850. Petrel, I. 83. Oh, that we had a bowline knot, to let down to him!
II. In Ship-building. ‘Bowlines are longitudinal curves representing the ship’s fore-body cut in a vertical section.’ Smyth, Sailor’s Word-bk.
