cat-head

cat-head (plural cat-heads)

1. Alternative form of cathead
   • 1840, R[ichard] H[enry] D[ana], Jr., chapter XXIX, in Two Years before the Mast. […] (Harper’s Family Library; no. CVI), New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers […], →OCLC:

     "Hurrah, for the last time!" said the mate; and the anchor came to the cat-head to the tune of "Time for us to go," with a loud chorus. Everything was done quick, as though it were for the last time.

   • 1898 September, Joseph Conrad, “Youth: a Narrative”, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume CLXIV, number DCCCCXCV, New York, N.Y.: The Leonard Scott Publication Co., page 325, column 1:

     The cat-heads had burned away, and the two red-hot anchors had gone to the bottom, tearing out after them two hundred fathom of red-hot chain.

cat-head (third-person singular simple present cat-heads, present participle cat-heading, simple past and past participle cat-headed)

1. Alternative form of cathead
   • 1840, R[ichard] H[enry] D[ana], Jr., chapter XXV, in Two Years before the Mast. […] (Harper’s Family Library; no. CVI), New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers […], →OCLC:

     [T]he whole canvas of the ship was loosed, and with the greatest rapidity possible, everything was sheeted home and hoisted up, the anchor tripped and cat-headed, and the ship under headway.