bilboes
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
They were right glad that I should come down to you, and I gave them the word of a sailor that I would get you out of the bilboes if it might anyhow be done.'
From Micah Clarke His Statement as made to his three grandchildren Joseph, Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 by Doyle, Arthur Conan, Sir
Shakspeare mentions Hamlet thinking of a kind of fighting, "That would not let me sleep: methought, I lay Worse than the mutines in the bilboes."
From The Sailor's Word-Book An Alphabetical Digest of Nautical Terms, including Some More Especially Military and Scientific, but Useful to Seamen; as well as Archaisms of Early Voyagers, etc. by Belcher, Edward, Sir
The bilboes is a bar of iron with fetters annexed to it, by which mutinous or disorderly sailors were anciently linked together.
From Folk-lore of Shakespeare by Thiselton-Dyer, Thomas Firminger
Soon another colonist felt the bilboes for “selling peeces and powder and shott to the Indians,” ever a bitterly-abhorred and fiercely-punished crime.
From Curious Punishments of Bygone Days by Earle, Alice Morse
They saw two great strong-boxes filled to the brim with iron chains, broken cutlases, rusty bilboes, and rock; a fool's treasure in truth.
From The Pirate Woman by Dingle, Aylward Edward