steeve

plural steeves

1. nauticalThe angle that a bowsprit makes with the horizon, or with the line of the vessel's keel.
2. A spar, with a block at one end, used in stowing cotton bales and similar cargo needing to be packed tightly.

present singular third person steeves · participle present steeving · participle past steeved · past steeved

1. archaicTo project upward, or make an angle with the horizon or with the line of a vessel's keel; said of the bowsprit, etc.
2. transitiveTo stow, as bales in a vessel's hold, by means of a steeve.

   "They are all alike to me." And indeed to a landsman, the nodding schooners around seemed run from the same mold. "They ain't, though. That yaller, dirty packet with her bowsprit steeved that way, she's the Hope of Prague. Nick Brady's her skipper, the meanest man on the Banks. […]"

   1897, Rudyard Kipling, Captains Courageous