selvagee

plural selvagees

1. archaicnauticalA skein or hank of rope yarns wound round with yarns or marline, used for stoppers, straps, etc.

   1 more example

   As the cable enters the hawse-hole, therefore, something must be constantly used, to keep this travelling chain attached to this travelling messenger; something that may be rapidly wound round both, so as to bind them together. The article used is called a selvagee. And what could be better adapted to the purpose? It is a slender, tapering, unstranded piece of rope prepared with much solicitude; peculiarly flexible; and wreathes and serpentines round the cable and messenger like an elegantly-modeled garter-snake round the twisted stalks of a vine.

   1850, Herman Melville, White-Jacket