Forms: 3–4 kable, 5–7 cabul(le, cabyl, -il, -ille, -el, -ell, -elle, (5–6 gable, gabyll), 3– cable. [ME. cable, cabel, kable, identical with Du. kabel, MDu. cābel, MLG. kabel, MHG. and Ger. kabel, all app. from Romanic: cf. F. câble, Sp. cable, Pg. cabre, all meaning ‘cable,’ It. cappio sliding knot, noose, gin:—late L. capulum, caplum a halter for catching or fastening cattle, according to Isidore f. capĕre to take ‘quod eo indomita jumenta comprehendantur’: cf. capulum, -us, ‘handle, haft,’ capulā-re to take, catch, etc.
(There are difficulties as to F. câble, older forms of which were caable, chaable, chéable, châble, which point, through *cadable, to a L. *catabola a kind of BALLISTA for hurling stones, etc., in which sense chaable also occurs: see Cabulus in Du Cange. Littré supposes an early confusion between this and *cable from Isidore’s capulum; others think that as the catabola was put in motion with ropes, it may be the real source. But this does not account for the Sp. and It. words.)]
1. A strong thick rope, originally of hemp or other fiber, now also of strands of iron wire.
Originally a stout rope of any thickness, but now, in nautical use, a cable (of hemp, jute, etc.) is 10 inches in circumference and upwards; ropes of less thickness being called cablets or hawsers. In other than nautical use (see 2), rope is commonly used when the material is hemp or fiber (as in the ‘rope’ by which a train is drawn up an incline), and cable when the material is wire.
c. 1205. Lay., 1338. He hihte hondlien kablen [c. 1275 cables].
c. 1320. Sir Guy, 4613. Sche come … Doun of þe castel in selcouþe wise Bi on cable alle sleyeliche.
c. 1340. Cursor M., 24848 (Fairf.). Þe mast hit shoke, þe cablis [earlier MSS. cordis] brast.
c. 1392. Chaucer, Compl. Venus, 33. Þaughe Ialousye wer hanged by a Kable Sheo wolde al knowe.
c. 1420. Chron. Vilod., 862. Alle þe gables of þe shippe þey broston a to.
1535. Coverdale, Eccles. iv. 12. A threfolde cable is not lightly broken.
1598. Barret, Theor. Warres, V. iii. 135. Smal cables for the artillery.
1626. G. Sandys, Ovid’s Met., VIII. 170.
| He still his guilt persues: who ouerthrowes | |
| With cabels, and innumerable blowes, | |
| The sturdy Oke. |
1708. J. C., Compl. Collier (1845), 34. A Cable of three inches round and of good Stuff, will do better for Coal-work.
1842. Penny Cycl., XXIII. 336/2. The platform [of a suspension-bridge at the Isle of Bourbon] is suspended from four cables … and each cable consists of fifteen bundles of eighty wires each.
b. fig.
1600. Hooker, Eccl. Pol., VII. xviii. § 10. The whole body politic should be … a threefold cable.
1604. Shaks., Oth., I. ii. 17. He will … put vpon you what restraint or greeuance The Law … will giue him Cable.
1609. Holland, Amm. Marcell., XXIX. i. 351. He unfolded … a huge long cable of villanies.
1616. R. C., Times’ Whis., VI. 2343. Linckt together with sinnes ougly cable.
c. It is easier for a cable to go through the eye of a needle, a variant rendering of Matt. xix. 24, Mark x. 25, Luke xviii. 25, adopted by Sir J. Cheke, and cited by many writers.
[This represents a variant interpretation of Gr. κάμηλον in this passage, mentioned already by Cyril of Alexandria in the 5th c. Subsequently a variant reading κάμῖλον (found in several late cursive MSS.) was associated with this rendering, and Suidas (? 11th c.) makes distinct words of κάμῖλος ‘cable,’ κάμηλος camel. Some Mod. Gr. dictionaries have also κάμιλος cable.]
c. 1530. More, De Quatuor Nouiss., Wks. (1557), 92. It were as harde for the riche manne to come into heauen, as a great cable or a Camel to go through a nedles eye.
c. 1550. Cheke, Matt. xix. 24. It is easier for a cable to passe thorough a nedels eie, ẏen for a rich man to enter in to ye kingdoom of heaven. [Marg. note. Although yt Suidas seem to sai κάμιλος to be for a cable roop, and κάμηλος for ye beest, iet theophylactus … and Celius … taak κάμηλος to be booẏ ȳe beest and ye cable, as moost season agreeabli serveth heer.]
1581. Marbeck, Bk. of Notes, 540. It is impossible for a Camell (or Cable, that is a great rope of a ship) … to go through a needles eye.
1657. Colvil, Whig’s Supplic. (1695), 49. An honest Clergyman will be When Cable passeth Needles eye.
1840. Marryat, Olla Podr., S. W. & by W. 3/4 W. If he were as incompetent as a camel (or, as they say at sea, a cable) to pass through the eye of a needle.
2. spec. (Naut.) The strong thick rope to which a ship’s anchor is fastened; and by transference, anything used for the same purpose, as a chain of iron links (chain cable).
‘Stream-cable, a hawser or rope something smaller than the bower, used to move or hold the ship temporarily during a calm in a river or haven, sheltered from the wind and sea, etc.’ (Smyth, Sailor’s Word-bk.)
c. 1325. E. E. Allit. P., B. 418. With-outen mast, oþer myke, oþer myry bawe-lyne, Kable, oþer capstan to clyppe to her ankrez.
c. 1400. Destr. Troy, 2848. Þai caste ancres full kene with cables to grounde.
1490. Caxton, Eneydos, xxvii. 96. Eneas … cutte asondre the cables that with helde the shippe within the hauen.
1593. Shaks., 3 Hen. VI., V. iv. 4. The Cable broke, the holding-Anchor lost.
1627. Capt. Smith, Seaman’s Gram., vii. 30. The Cables also carry a proportion to the Anchors, but if it be not three strond, it is accounted but a Hawser.
1769. Falconer, Dict. Marine (1789), s.v. Admiral, They may be ready to cut or slip the cables when they shall be too much hurried to weigh their anchors.
1836. W. Irving, Astoria, I. 185. Slip the cable and endeavour to get to sea.
1885. Annandale, Imp. Dict., s.v., Chain-cables have now almost superseded rope-cables.
b. fig.
1635. Quarles, Embl., III. xi. (1718), 169. Pray’r is the Cable, at whose end appears The anchor hope.
1677. Yarranton, Engl. Improv., 22. The grand Banks … shall be the Anchor and Cable of all smaller Banks.
1851. Mayhew, Lond. Labour, I. 360/1. Her cable had run out, and she died.
c. A cable or cable’s length, as a unit of measurement, ‘about 100 fathoms; in marine charts 607·56 feet, or one-tenth of a sea mile’ (Adml. Smyth).
1555. Eden, Decades W. Ind. (Arb.), 381. Redde cliffes with white strakes like wayes a cable length a piece.
1665. Duke of York’s Fight. Instr., xiv. To keep about the distance of half a cable from one another.
1702. Lond. Gaz., No. 3844/4. The Two Buoys … being distant near the Length of Two Cables.
1769. Falconer, Dict. Marine (1789), Cable … a measure of 120 fathoms, called by the English seamen a cable’s length.
1778. Capt. Miller, in Nicolas, Disp. Nelson (1846), VII. Introd. 159. We got within a cable and a half of her.
1813. Southey, Nelson (1854), 167. He veered half a cable, and instantly opened a tremendous fire.
1840. R. H. Dana, Bef. Mast, xi. 26. Within two cable lengths of the shore.
3. Telegraphy. A rope-like line used for submarine telegraphs, containing the wires along which the electric current passes, embedded in gutta percha or other insulating substance, and encased in an external sheathing of strong wire strands, resembling the wire cable of sense 1. Also b. a bundle of insulated wires, passing through a pipe laid underground in streets, etc.
1854. Specif. Brett’s Patent, No. 10939. 21. This said cable or rope I denominate my Oceanic Line.
1852. Leisure Hour, Sept., 591. Complimentary messages were transmitted by means of the cable through the waters to Dover.
1855. Wheatstone, Roy. Soc. Proc., VII. 328. Experiments made with the submarine cable of the Mediterranean Electric Telegraph.
1858. Times, 31 Dec., 6/6. The delay in the launch of the Leviathan and the unfortunate fracture of the oceanic cable have unhappily caused disappointment and loss to the projectors of both undertakings.
1864. W. Crookes, Q. Jrnl. Sci., I. 44. The Atlantic Cable and its Teachings. By William Crookes, F.R.S.
1865. Russell, Atlantic Telegr., 2. Mr. Wheatstone, however, as early as 1840, brought before the House of Commons the project of a cable, to be laid between Dover and Calais.
1880. Times, 17 Dec., 5/6. The Mary Kimball … is reported by cable to have put into St. Thomas leaky.
1887. Telegr. Jrnl., 4 March, 203/2. In our system, the cables can be easily drawn out of the iron pipes if occasion demands it.
c. A cable message, a CABLEGRAM.
1883. J. Hay, Bread-Winners, 183. It riled me to have to pay for the two cables.
1884. Pall Mall Gaz., 6 Aug., 11/1. I was desired by my chief in New York to despatch a man at once and give them a long ‘cable.’
1886. Daily News, 4 June, 6/4. He [General Booth] had received cables of greeting from the ‘comrades’ in Australasia and America.
4. Arch., Goldsmith’s work, etc. (also cable-moulding): A convex molding or ornament made in the form of a rope.
1859. Turner, Dom. Archit., III. i. 9. Norman ornaments … particularly the billet and the cable. Ibid., II. vii. 359. The cornice is the cable-moulding on a large scale.
1862. Athenæum, 30 Aug., 277. A figure of Science, on a coral base, with a cable border.
1877. W. Jones, Finger-ring L., 140. The outer edge … is also decorated with a heavy cable-moulding.
5. (See quot.)
1877. Peacock, N. W. Lincoln. Gloss. (E. D. S.), Cable, a long narrow strip of ground.
6. Attrib. and Comb., as (senses 1, 2) cable-chain, -coil, -maker, -roots; (sense 3) cable-advice, -despatch, -man, -message, -tank; (sense 4) cable-border, moulding, pattern, etc.
1882. Mod. Trade Circular, Further *cable advices from the Colonies.
1886. Pall Mall Gaz., 27 Aug., 11/2. The *cable-chain makers…. These factory men, who make the marine or cable chains.
1667. Denham, Direct. Painter, II. ix. 24. See that thou … spoil All their Sea-market, and their *Cable-coyl.
1483. Caxton, G. de la Tour, F j. A roper or *cable maker.
1865. Daily Tel., 19 Aug., 4/4. Mr. Canning showed the cable and the stab to the *cablemen.
1877. Daily News, 3 Nov., 6/5. The following *cable message has been received … from New York.
1611. Beaum. & Fl., Philaster, V. iii. Pines, whose *cable roots Held out a thousand storms.
1865. Sat. Rev., 12 Aug., 192/2. The first defect was occasioned—[by] the dropping of a fragment of wire into the *cable-tank.
7. Special comb.: cable-bends, cable-buoy, cable-hanger (see quots.); cable-hatband, a twisted cord of gold, silver, or silk, worn round the hat (Halliw.); cable-laid a. (see quot.); cable-range, a given length of cable; a range of coils or rolls of cable; cable-rope = sense 1; also, cable-laid rope; cable-stock, the capstan; cable-tier, the place in a hold, or between decks, where the cables are coiled away; cable-tools (see quot.).
1867. Smyth, Sailor’s Word-bk., *Cable-bends, two small ropes for lashing the end of a hempen cable to its own part, in order to secure the clinch by which it is fastened to the anchor-ring.
1769. Falconer, Dict. Marine (1789), *Cable-Buoys, common casks employed to buoy up the cables.
1732. De Foe, Tour Gt. Brit. (1769), I. 149. Persons who dredge or fish for Oysters [on the Medway], not being free of the Fishery, are called *Cable-hangers.
1599. B. Jonson, Ev. Man out of Hum., Induct. Wearing a pyed feather The *cable hatband, or the three-piled ruff.
1602. Marston, Ant. & Mell., II. i. C 3 b (N.). O, more cable, more fetherbeds, more fetherbeds, more cable, till hee had as much as my cable hatband, to fence him.
1723. Lond. Gaz., No. 6129/3. Stolen from the Fifth Moorings, Eleven Fathom of Eleven Inch *Cable laid Pendant.
1769. Falconer, Dict. Marine (1789), s.v. Ropes, Ropes are either cable-laid or hawser-laid: the former are composed of nine strands, viz. three great strands, each of which is composed of three smaller strands.
1883. W. Clark Russell, Sea Queen, II. ii. 34. The men were set to work to get the cable-range along, ready for bringing up.
1523. Skelton, Garl. Laurel, 833. From the anker he kutteth the *gabyll rope.
1556. Chron. Gr. Friars (1852), 53. At the west ende of Powlles stepull was tayed a cabelle roppe.
1711. Lond. Gaz., No. 4882/3. About sixty Fathom of Cable Rope, about nine Inches Circumference.
1549. Compl. Scot., vi. 40. The maister … bald the marynalis lay the cabil to the *cabilstok.
1833. Marryat, P. Simple (1863), 62. Knocking the man down into the *cable tier.
c. 1860. H. Stuart, Seaman’s Catech., 62. The hemp cables are coiled in the cable tiers.
1881. Raymond, Mining Gloss., *Cable-tools. The apparatus used in drilling deep holes, such as artesian wells, with a rope, instead of rods, to connect the drill with the machine on the surface.
