marlinspike

• marlin spike
• marlinespike
• marline spike
• marlingspike
• marling spike

From marline +‎ spike.

marlinspike (plural marlinspikes)

1. A tool, consisting of a pointed metal spike, used to manipulate the strands of rope or cable when knotting and splicing.
   • 1924, Herman Melville, chapter 12, in Billy Budd‎, London: Constable & Co.:

     […] the afterguard, of whom they have but a sorry opinion, chiefly landsmen, never going aloft except to reef or furl the mainsail and in no wise competent to handle a marlinspike or turn in a dead-eye, say.

   • 1962, Robert Hayden, “Middle Passage”, in David Lehman, editor, The Oxford Book of American Poetry, Oxford University Press, published 2006, page 585:

     There was / that interval of moonless calm filled only / with the water's and the rigging's usual sounds, / then sudden movement, blows and snarling cries / and they had fallen on us with machete / and marlinspike.