cat-harping

plural cat-harpings

1. nauticalOne of the short ropes or iron cramps used to brace in the shrouds toward the masts so as to give freer sweep to the yards.

   1 more example

   Farewell, then, to the gallant old Indiaman, with her hammock nettings, bunt jiggers, rolling tackles, jeers, gammon lashings, bentinck shrouds, and cat harpings, dear to sailors' hearts; and good-bye to her sailors, too, sons of the men who fought in the victorious fleets of Nelson, fellows who drank gunpowder in their rum before stripping to battle with the enemy, who could stand triced up by the thumbs and take their four-and-twenty of rawhide on the naked back without wetting an eyelash.

   1911, Arthur Hamilton Clark, The Clipper Ship Era 1843-1869, Chapter 2