Definitions
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun plural (Naut.) The small transverse ropes attached to the shrouds and forming the steps of a rope ladder.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun Plural form of
ratline .
Etymologies
Sorry, no etymologies found.
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Examples
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"ratlines" - Perón considered the Nuremburg trials "an outrage history would not forgive."
JPost Headlines 2009
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I suspect this is part of the Israeli Defense Forces attempts to put a strangle hold, a grip, on Lebanon, to prevent any kind of ratlines or secret supply routes -- Wolf.
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Gelli, who had served with Franco's forces in the Spanish Civil War, helped organize the underground "ratlines" responsible for smuggling scores of powerful Nazis and their sympathizers out of Europe immediately after World War II.
LewRockwell.com 2010
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It was a monster of the sea, with massive black ratlines and thousands of feet of sail.
GuildWars Edge of Destiny J. Robert King 2011
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They learned how to keep their feet on rolling decks, how to climb ratlines in a gale, how to furl and unfurl sail, how to hurl grapnels and board ships and fire blunderbusses.
GuildWars Edge of Destiny J. Robert King 2011
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The staffs themselves were like ships 'masts, with topmasts spliced on in true nautical fashion, with shrouds, ratlines, gaffs, and flag-halyards.
Chapter 1 2010
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He managed to get underneath the crosstrees, and there he froze to the ratlines.
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She flung it around the ratlines, pinning the undead to it.
GuildWars Edge of Destiny J. Robert King 2011
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Steering I picked up easily, but running aloft to the crosstrees and swinging my whole weight by my arms when I left the ratlines and climbed still higher, was more difficult.
Chapter 17 2010
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A summer of higher casualties is upon us, as U.S. marines and soldiers advance down Taliban ratlines in southern Afghanistan.
Obama the Untested 2009
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