English Dictionary

HEMPEN

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IPA (US): 

 Dictionary entry overview: What does hempen mean? 

HEMPEN (adjective)
  The adjective HEMPEN has 1 sense:

1. having or resembling fibers especially fibers used in making cordage such as those of juteplay

  Familiarity information: HEMPEN used as an adjective is very rare.


 Dictionary entry details 


HEMPEN (adjective)


Sense 1

Meaning:

Having or resembling fibers especially fibers used in making cordage such as those of jute

Synonyms:

fibrous; hempen

Similar:

tough (resistant to cutting or chewing)


 Context examples 


That’s all I know, and I say again that if I killed Black Peter, the law should give me thanks, for I saved them the price of a hempen rope.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

And I can call to mind, remarked Johnston, that when the great cog 'Christopher,' which the French had taken from us, was moored two hundred paces from the shore, two archers, little Robin Withstaff and Elias Baddlesmere, in four shots each cut every strand of her hempen anchor-cord, so that she well-nigh came upon the rocks.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

But I shall not trouble the reader with a particular description of my own mechanics; let it suffice to say, that in six weeks time with the help of the sorrel nag, who performed the parts that required most labour, I finished a sort of Indian canoe, but much larger, covering it with the skins of Yahoos, well stitched together with hempen threads of my own making.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

There are as many masterless folk in this country as there are rabbits on Cowdray Down, and there are many who show their faces by night but would dance in a hempen collar if they stirred forth in the day.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

This chanced to come to Simon's ears when we were at Bordeaux together, and he would have it that we should ride to Cardillac with a good hempen cord, and give this Gourval such a scourging as he merited.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

A quiet land is this—a land where the slow-moving Basque, with his flat biretta-cap, his red sash and his hempen sandals, tills his scanty farm or drives his lean flock to their hill-side pastures.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)



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