Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun Loose hemp or jute fiber, sometimes treated with tar, creosote, or asphalt, used chiefly for caulking seams in wooden ships and packing pipe joints.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun The coarse part separated from flax or hemp in hackling; tow.
- noun Junk or old ropes untwisted, and picked into loose fibers resembling tow: used for calking the seams of ships, stopping leaks, etc. That made from untarred ropes is called
white oakum .
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun The material obtained by untwisting and picking into loose fiber old hemp ropes; -- used for calking the seams of ships, stopping leaks, etc.
- noun The coarse portion separated from flax or hemp in nackling.
- noun that made from untarred rope.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun A
material , consisting oftarred fibres , used tocaulk orpack joints in plumbing, masonry, and wooden shipbuilding.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun loose hemp or jute fiber obtained by unravelling old ropes; when impregnated with tar it was used to caulk seams and pack joints in wooden ships
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Dutchman, picking to pieces tarred ropes, which, when reduced to its original form of hemp, they call oakum; or else you see him lazily stowed away in some corner, with his pipe, surrounded with smoke, and
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The planks are jointed at the edges so as to fit close, and the spaces between are stuffed with oakum, which is called calking.
The Boat Club or, The Bunkers of Rippleton Oliver Optic 1859
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He saw the prisoners picking "oakum," or untwisting old ropes that had been used in boats, tearing the strands into loose hemp to be afterwards used in caulking the seams between the wood planks on the decks and sides of ships, so as to make them water-tight; and as it was near the prisoners 'dinner-time, he saw the food that had been prepared for their dinner in
From John O'Groats to Land's End Robert Naylor
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Are you absolutely obliged to straighten at once what is crooked? to stuff every hole with some kind of oakum?
Beyond Good and Evil Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche 1872
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Are you absolutely obliged to straighten at once what is crooked? to stuff every hole with some kind of oakum?
k-punk 2010
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He says that when a certain philosophical neighbor came to visit him in his hut at Walden, their discourse expanded and racked the little house: "I should not dare to say how many pounds 'weight there was above the atmospheric pressure on every circular inch; it opened its seams so that they had to be calked with much dulness thereafter to stop the consequent leak -- but I had enough of that kind of oakum already picked."
The Last Harvest John Burroughs 1879
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Ah! such discourse we had, hermit and philosopher, and the old settler I have spoken of, -- we three, -- it expanded and racked my little house; I should not dare to say how many pounds 'weight there was above the atmospheric pressure on every circular inch; it opened its seams so that they had to be calked with much dulness thereafter to stop the consequent leak; -- but I had enough of that kind of oakum already picked.
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Ah! such discourse we had, hermit and philosopher, and the old settler I have spoken of — we three — it expanded and racked my little house; I should not dare to say how many pounds 'weight there was above the atmospheric pressure on every circular inch; it opened its seams so that they had to be calked with much dulness thereafter to stop the consequent leak; — but I had enough of that kind of oakum already picked.
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Ah! such discourse we had, hermit and philosopher, and the old settler I have spoken of -- we three -- it expanded and racked my little house; I should not dare to say how many pounds 'weight there was above the atmospheric pressure on every circular inch; it opened its seams so that they had to be calked with much dulness thereafter to stop the consequent leak; -- but I had enough of that kind of oakum already picked.
Walden Henry David Thoreau 1839
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_entremets_, or he began to stuff what he, himself, had called "oakum," into the chinks of his dinner.
Homeward Bound or, the Chase James Fenimore Cooper 1820
chained_bear commented on the word oakum
OED sez:
Originally: the coarse woody fibres (hurds or tow) separated from the finer fibres of flax or hemp; (also) clippings, trimmings, shreds (obsolete). Later (also): esp. loosely twisted fibres obtained chiefly by untwisting and picking old hemp rope; such fibres or the like, used as a caulking material for the seams of wooden ships, the joints of pipes, etc., and formerly sometimes in dressing wounds. Now chiefly historical.
The picking of old rope was a task formerly assigned to convicts and inmates of workhouses.
February 12, 2007
reesetee commented on the word oakum
Wow. And I thought *my* job was tedious.
February 12, 2007
chained_bear commented on the word oakum
There's always something worse...
February 12, 2007
knitandpurl commented on the word oakum
"He did what he was told to do as long as he was able, picking oakum until exhaustion stopped him, or helping to push the heavy handle of the bone grinder round and round until his body failed and he had to be half carried, half dragged back to his pallet."
The Bride's Farewell by Meg Rosoff, p 155
June 26, 2010
duckbill commented on the word oakum
Cords untwisted and reduced to hemp, with which, mingled with pitch, leaks are stopped.
They make their oakum, wherewith they chalk the seams of the ships, of old seer and weather beaten ropes, when they are over spent and grown so rotten as they serve for no other use but to make rotten oakum, which moulders and washes away with ever sea as the ships labour and are tossed. Ral.
Some drive old oakum thro’ each seam and rift;
Their left hand does the calking-iron guide;
The rattling mallet with the right they lift. Dryden.
Dr. Johnson
April 20, 2011
dailyword commented on the word oakum
This word was used in the "Master And Commander." movie.
July 31, 2012