BEAM-ENDS

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does beam-ends mean? 

• BEAM-ENDS (noun)
  The noun BEAM-ENDS has 1 sense:

1. (nautical) at the ends of the transverse deck beams of a vessel

  Familiarity information: BEAM-ENDS used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• BEAM-ENDS (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

(nautical) at the ends of the transverse deck beams of a vessel

Classified under:

Nouns denoting spatial position

Context example:

on her beam-ends

Hypernyms ("beam-ends" is a kind of...):

face; side (a surface forming part of the outside of an object)

Domain category:

navigation; sailing; seafaring (the work of a sailor)

 Context examples 

It began to be chill; the tide was rapidly fleeting seaward, the schooner settling more and more on her beam-ends.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

And, halfway to the crosstrees and flattened against the rigging by the full force of the wind so that it would have been impossible for me to have fallen, the Ghost almost on her beam-ends and the masts parallel with the water, I looked, not down, but at almost right angles from the perpendicular, to the deck of the Ghost.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

There was a bell on board; and as the ship rolled and dashed, like a desperate creature driven mad, now showing us the whole sweep of her deck, as she turned on her beam-ends towards the shore, now nothing but her keel, as she sprung wildly over and turned towards the sea, the bell rang; and its sound, the knell of those unhappy men, was borne towards us on the wind.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Leaning out of the window, and seeing one of the faces on the beam-ends looking at me sideways, I fancied it was Uriah Heep got up there somehow, and shut him out in a hurry.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)