What is "grapnels"

Usage examples of "grapnels".

Every other gun of the starboard batteries was fired, directly at the French gunports, then, while swivels, slingpieces, and other smaller ordnance swept the decks from rails to both castles and fighting-tops, with arquebusiers and archers adding their ounces of lead and feathered shafts to the deadly sleet, brawny arms whirled the grapnels about to gain momentum, then hurled them across the narrow space to thud onto decks and sink their points deeply into rails and coamings, ladders and woodwork.

The catamarans swept in on either side, throwing grapnels pronged with wood and stone.

Wrought-iron grapnels came upward at the ends of knotted ropes, and the warriors behind them.

Armored Americans stabbed and shoved and tried to cut the grapnels free, but the ropes were wound with metal wire for several feet down from the loops that held them to the iron hooks.