mainmast head

plural mainmast heads

1. nauticalThe top of a sailing ship’s mainmast.

   1912, George H. Read, The Last Cruise of the Saginaw, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, Chapter 2, p. 12, With the homeward-bound pennant flying from the mainmast head and with the contractor’s working party on board, we sailed from the Midway Islands on Friday, October 29, at 4 P.M. for San Francisco.

   2 more examples

   What early philosophic hours he keeps, How regular his meals, how sound he sleeps! Not sounder he that on the mainmast head, While morning kindles with a windy red, Begins a long look-out for distant land, Nor quits till evening-watch his giddy stand, Then swift descending with a seaman’s haste, Slips to his hammock, and forgets the blast.

   1782, William Cowper, “Retirement”, in Poems, London: J. Johnson, page 280

   Fedallah first descried this jet. For of these moonlight nights, it was his wont to mount to the main-mast head, and stand a look-out there, with the same precision as if it had been day.

   1851 November 14, Herman Melville, “Chapter 51”, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC