A soft sandstone used for scrubbing the decks of a ship, 9 letters - Crossword clues, answers, solver

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Answer for the clue "A soft sandstone used for scrubbing the decks of a ship ", 9 letters:
holystone

Word definitions for holystone in dictionaries

Wikipedia Word definitions in Wikipedia
Holystone is a soft and brittle sandstone that was formerly used in the Royal Navy and US Navy for scrubbing and whitening the wooden decks of ships. A variety of origins have been proposed for the term, including that such stones were taken from broken ...

The Collaborative International Dictionary Word definitions in The Collaborative International Dictionary
Holystone \Ho"ly*stone`\, v. t. (Naut.) To scrub with a holystone, as the deck of a vessel.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary Word definitions in Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
soft sandstone used to scrub decks of sailing ships, 1777, despite the spelling, so called perhaps because it is full of holes. As a verb, by 1828.

WordNet Word definitions in WordNet
n. a soft sandstone used for scrubbing the decks of a ship v. scrub with a holystone; "holystone the ship's deck"

Wiktionary Word definitions in Wiktionary
n. (context nautical English) A block of soft sandstone used for scrubbing the wooden decks of a ship, usually with sand and seawater; sometimes called a bible. vb. (context transitive English) To scrub the decks with a holystone.

Usage examples of holystone.

They went below and took their infinitely welcome burgoo and coffee in the gunroom, still talking very quietly, although by this time the idlers had been called and the grind of holystones cleaning the deck in the darkness rumbled through the ship.

Besides a thorough holystone fore and aft, salt-stained sides were sluiced with fresh water, brightwork brought to a thorough gleam and the seadulled colors around the beakhead and figurehead touched up to their usual striking splendor.

And it bore little or no resemblance to the book as we have it now--now that the salaried polisher has holystoned all of the genuine Eddyties out of it.

Pyra Quadde kept to her cabin, occasionally pacing the quarterdeck, stick beating out a discontented tattoo on the scrubbed and holystoned planks.

In brief, it was just this efficiency in pride, as well as work, that enabled Dana to set down, not merely the photograph detail of life before the mast and hide-droghing on the coast of California, but of the untarnished simple psychology and ethics of the forecastle hands who droghed the hides, stood at the wheel, made and took in sail, tarred down the rigging, holystoned the decks, turned in all-standing, grumbled as they cut about the kid, criticised the seamanship of their officers, and estimated the duration of their exile from the cubic space of the hide-house.

Flattening to the three-inch oak slabs, he could hear, with the hyperacute senses of a wizard, the insectile scratching of broomstraw and holystone beyond, the whisper of a voice speaking words of dissolution, of breaking.

On deck the foretopmen had set the elm-tree pump a-wheezing, while the fo'c'slemen washed the fo'c'sle with the fresh sea-water they pumped, the maintopmen washed the starboard side of the quarter-deck and the quarter-deck men all the rest, grinding away with holystones until the water ran like thin milk from the admixture of minute raspings of wood and caulking, and the boys and the idlers - the people who merely worked all day - heaved at the chain-pumps to clear the night's water out of the bilges, and the gunner's crew cosseted the fourteen four-pounders.

It was not the noise of the ship's bell that woke him, for it had been tolling all night, ever since they entered the fog, with a musket-shot every two minutes, nor the sound of the swabs and the holystones, which were something of a lullaby to him, nor yet the light of day, there being so very little of it, but rather the working of some calculating-machine within that had sensed the shifting of the wind both in force and direction, and plotting these against the variations in the ship's course, with allowance for leeway and indraught, now informed him that they had opened Hano Bay.

But whereas the Commodore, heavy with work, port and toasted cheese, went straight to sleep the moment his head touched the pillow of his swinging cot, Stephen found the wakeful coca-leaves as active as ever - they far outdid coffee in banishing even the thought of sleep - and as he wished to write up his notes in the morning he took a powerful sleeping draught, together with a bolus of Java mandragore, and thrust balls of wax deep into his ears against the ship noises, the changing of the watch, the eventual holystoning, scrubbing and swabbing of the decks, the screech and thump of the pumps.