earing

Pluralearings

1. 1
   nouncountable

   A rope attached at an upper corner of a sail to hold it to a yard or gaff.

   The bosun made the earing fast to the yardarm before the squall hit.

   Worn earings let the sail's corners flap loose in a strong wind.

   Note

   Sailors also call it the head earing, which pins down the corners in question: the two at the top of the sail, where the canvas meets the yard or gaff. The lines that control the sail's foot are a separate set. On a working ship the bare word usually means this line unless the context points elsewhere. The plural is simply earings.

2. 2
   nouncountable

   On a sailing vessel, a line used to pull the reef cringle up to the yard when a sail is being reefed.

   Tightening the earing brought the reef cringle hard up to the yard.

   In the gale, a snapped earing left the reefed sail straining dangerously.

   Note

   Shortening sail has its own earing. Called the reef earing to set it apart from the head earing, it hauls a reef cringle up to the yard. Compounds name an earing by the corner or job it serves. In Rudyard Kipling's Captains Courageous (1897), an old hand chides a boy who has "forgot to pass the tack-earing". To pass an earing is to set the line in place.

3. 3
   nouncountable

   On a ship, a line that ties a corner of an awning to the rigging or to the stanchions.

   The steward made the earing fast to a stanchion to keep the awning level.

   A frayed earing let the awning's corner droop over the quarterdeck.

   Note

   The word follows the canvas off the sails and onto deck awnings. Here each corner line runs to the rigging or to an upright stanchion, keeping the awning spread taut for shade. Context separates it from the sail's head earing: an awning has no yard or gaff. A steward rigging shade and a topman securing a sail both speak of earings.

4. 4
   noununcountable

   A defect in which the edges of drawn sheet metal form a wave pattern during deep drawing.

   Severe earing forced the team to trim the part's wavy edge before assembly.

   They traced the earing to the grain direction of the rolled sheet.

   Note

   Sheet-metal work uses the word for a defect. The rim of a deep-drawn part comes out in periodic waves or scallops instead of a level edge. The usual cause is anisotropy in the rolled sheet, which makes metal flow unevenly around the cup depending on grain direction. In this sense it is mostly a mass noun: engineers speak of severe earing, or of reducing earing, rather than counting earings.

5. 5
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of ear.

   By late June the barley was earing across the whole valley.

   Farmers watched the rye earing unevenly after the dry spring.

   Note

   One spelling serves several verbs. Earing can mean plowing, the archaic sense behind the old word for plowing. It can mean putting forth ears, as grain does, or, humorously, hearing. Context sorts them out. Oxen earing a meadow are plowing it, while wheat that is earing is coming into ear. The grain sense takes no object, but the plowing and hearing senses do.

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