rowlock

plural rowlocks · alternative rollick · alternative rollock · alternative rullock

1. UKnauticalA usually U-shaped pivot attached to the gunwale (outrigger in a sport boat) of a boat that supports and guides an oar, and provides a fulcrum for rowing; an oarlock.

   Everything smelled salt and there was no noise except the swishing of water and the clop-clop of water against the sides and the splash of the oars and the jolting noise of the rowlocks.

   1951, C. S. Lewis, chapter 8, in Prince Caspian, Collins, published 1998

   1 more example

   I took a good gap and a stretch, and was just going to unhitch and start when I heard a sound away over the water. I listened. Pretty soon I made it out. It was that dull kind of a regular sound that comes from oars working in rowlocks when it's a still night.

   1884 December 10, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], chapter VII, in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: (Tom Sawyer’s Comrade) […], London: Chatto & Windus, […], →OCLC

   Synonyms: oarlock

2. A brick, for example in a course of brickwork, that is laid vertically with its tallest but slimmest side facing down, and its shortest face facing the outside of the wall (oriented so that it is taller than it is wide).