Crossword clues for capstan
capstan
- Where nautical rope is wound
- Windlass
- A windlass rotated in a horizontal plane
- Type of windlass
- Part of a tape recorder
- Anchor holster
- Skipper goes round southern island missing bit of ship's apparatus
- Ship's windlass used for lifting heavy weights
- Accountant pants moving windlass
- Device for winding pasta twists into drained corn
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Capstan \Cap"stan\, n. [F. cabestan, fr. Sp. cabestrante, cabrestante, fr. cabestrar to bind with a halter, fr. cabestrohalter, fr. L. capistrum halter, fr. capere to hold (see Capacious); or perh. the Spanish is fr. L. caper goat + stans, p. pr. of stare to stand; cf. F. ch[`e]vre she-goat, also a machine for raising heavy weights.] A vertical cleated drum or cylinder, revolving on an upright spindle, and surmounted by a drumhead with sockets for bars or levers. It is much used, especially on shipboard, for moving or raising heavy weights or exerting great power by traction upon a rope or cable, passing around the drum. It is operated either by steam power or by a number of men walking around the capstan, each pushing on the end of a lever fixed in its socket. [Sometimes spelt Capstern, but improperly.]
Capstan bar, one of the long bars or levers by which the capstan is worked; a handspike..
To pawl the capstan, to drop the pawls so that they will catch in the notches of the pawl ring, and prevent the capstan from turning back.
To rig the capstan, to prepare the for use, by putting the bars in the sockets.
To surge the capstan, to slack the tension of the rope or cable wound around it.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
late 14c., from Old French cabestant, from Old Provençal cabestan, from capestre "pulley cord," from Latin capistrum "halter," from capere "to hold, take" (see capable).
Wiktionary
n. (cx nautical English) A vertical cleated drum or cylinder, revolving on an upright spindle, and surmounted by a drumhead with sockets for bars or levers. It is much used, especially on shipboard, for moving or raising heavy weights or exerting great power by traction upon a rope or cable, passing around the drum. It is operated either by steam power or by a number of men walking around the capstan, each pushing on the end of a lever fixed in its socket.
WordNet
n. a windlass rotated in a horizontal plane around a vertical axis; used on ships for weighing anchor or raising heavy sails
Wikipedia
Capstan may refer to:
- Capstan (nautical), a rotating machine used to control or apply force to another element
- Capstan (tape recorder), rotating spindles used to move recording tape through the mechanism of a tape recorder
- Capstan (software), audio restoration program by Celemony which eliminates wow and flutter
- Capstan (cigarette), a brand of British cigarette
- Slingsby Capstan, a British two-seat glider of the 1960s
Capstan is a brand of unfiltered British cigarettes made by Imperial Tobacco and originally launched by W. D. & H. O. Wills in 1894. The brand became less popular when the health effects of tobacco became more widely known; few shops now sell them.
In 1973 the UK government published a table of the tar and nicotine contents of cigarettes available in the UK market, and Capstan Full Strength contained, by a margin of 0.21 mg/cigarette, the highest nicotine content (3.39 mg/cigarette) of any brand, and the second highest tar content.
However, since 2004 cigarettes sold in the UK have had a cap of 10mg of tar and 1mg of nicotine per cigarette.
Usage examples of "capstan".
He tied one end of the rope to the capstan, and the other end was tied to a large boat, a type of whaling boat, that had been filled with firewood and candlewood, all soaked with oil so it would burn well.
I hastened to the aperture, and under the crustations of coral, covered with fungi, syphonules, alcyons, madrepores, through myriads of charming fish--girelles, glyphisidri, pompherides, diacopes, and holocentres--I recognised certain debris that the drags had not been able to tear up--iron stirrups, anchors, cannons, bullets, capstan fittings, the stem of a ship, all objects clearly proving the wreck of some vessel, and now carpeted with living flowers.
Soon he was carefully swung inside the high bulwarks, and gently landed upon the capstan head.
The ends of all the running ropes, with the exception of the signal halyards and poop-down-haul, were rove through snatch-blocks, and led to the capstan or windlass, so that not a yard was braced or a sail set without the assistance of machinery.
The whaleboats were cleaned, lowered and raised again, the men on the davits chanting an old whaling capstan song to lighten the chore.
Stubb stoutly stood up to his spermaceti supper at the capstan-head, as if that capstan were a sideboard.
They stared a cross the channel, and in the moonlight saw the silhouette of the Gull begin to alter, as the hawser running from the anchor to her capstan Pulliede her stern round, and her full broadside was presented.
Slowly, the passage of time lost all significance, and none were sure whether it was night or day when the sound of the anchor capstan from the upper deck reverberated through the hull and they heard the faint shouts of the petty-officers relaying the orders to get the Gull under way.
The topmast men were already half-way up the shrouds, and another gang was manning the capstan to weigh the anchor.
The riotous powwow of setting a spar was going on down on the forecastle, and I went down there and stood around in the way-- or mostly skipping out of it--till the mate suddenly roared a general order for somebody to bring him a capstan bar.
They cast anchor, and then began to turn the capstan to loosen the moorings of the net.
Then there were the wines hocks, moselles (yeah, German, old stock, I guess), clarets and burgundies, even some vintage stuff sharing space on the edge and underneath the table with cartons of cigarettes Lucky Strike, Camel, Wills Capstan, Churchmans No 1, and some I hadn't even taken note of.
Gant struck up a chantey and slowly and steadily they plodded around the capstan, and inch by slow inch the schooner began to move once more.
The Tlingits, filled with their age-old hatred of Russians, fell to with a will and to the tune of chanteys they shoved and pushed on the capstan bars.
Sharina could hear the crew calling a chantey as they walked the capstan, raising the yard and sail which had rested on deck while the ship was in harbor.