bilboes

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

The bilboes is a bar of iron with fetters annexed to it, by which mutinous or disorderly sailors were anciently linked together.

From Folk-lore of Shakespeare by Thiselton-Dyer, Thomas Firminger

Shakspeare makes Hamlet sleep "Worse than the mutines in the bilboes."

From The Sailor's Word-Book An Alphabetical Digest of Nautical Terms, including Some More Especially Military and Scientific, but Useful to Seamen; as well as Archaisms of Early Voyagers, etc. by Belcher, Edward, Sir

Shakspeare mentions Hamlet thinking of a kind of fighting, "That would not let me sleep: methought, I lay Worse than the mutines in the bilboes."

From The Sailor's Word-Book An Alphabetical Digest of Nautical Terms, including Some More Especially Military and Scientific, but Useful to Seamen; as well as Archaisms of Early Voyagers, etc. by Belcher, Edward, Sir

Here, Nicholls, this man is your prisoner; get the bilboes and clap them on him.

From The Missing Merchantman by Overend, William Heysham

Soon another colonist felt the bilboes for “selling peeces and powder and shott to the Indians,” ever a bitterly-abhorred and fiercely-punished crime.

From Curious Punishments of Bygone Days by Earle, Alice Morse