Also 7 cat’s-head. Naut. A beam projecting almost horizontally at each side of the bows of a ship, for raising the anchor from the surface of the water to the deck without touching the bows, and for carrying the anchor on its stock-end when suspended outside the ship’s side; it is furnished with sheaves at the outer end, and the inner end, which is called the cat’s-tail, fays down upon the cat-beam.
The anchor is catted or raised to the cat-head by means of the cat-tackle or cat-purchase, which consists of the cat-block, cat-fall, and the sheaves in the cat-head; the cat-block is furnished with a strong hook, the cat-hook, which is hooked to the ring of the anchor by means of the cat-rope, or cat-back-rope; when raised, the anchor is fastened by its ring to the cat-head with the cat-head-stopper or cat-stopper. See also CAT sb. 7 and 18.
1626. Capt. Smith, Accid. Yng. Sea-men, 12. The Cat, Cats head and Cats holes.
1679. Exec. Bury, 3. The Prisoner was … shooting at the Cat-head of his own ship as a mark.
1769. Falconer, Dict. Marine (1789), The cat-head serves to suspend the anchor clear of the bow.
1805. in Nicolas, Disp. Nelson (1846), VII. 156, note. She ceased firing and waved a Union Jack at her cat-head.
1840. R. H. Dana, Bef. Mast, xv. 40. The anchor came to the cat-head pretty slowly.
1869. Sir E. J. Reed, Shipbuild., xv. 292. In order to reduce both the weight and the cost of the catheads…, box catheads have been introduced instead of solid forgings.
2. dial. A nodule of ironstone, containing fossil remains.
1670. W. Simpson, Hydrol. Ess., 63. Usually called by them Doggers, or Cats-heads.
1719. Strachey, in Phil. Trans., XXX. 970. Certain Lumps of Stone … like a Caput mortuum not inflammable, called Cats-head.
1728. Woodward, Fossils, 14 (J.). The Nodules, with Leaves in them, called Catheads, seem to consist of a sort of Iron-Stone.
3. Mining. a. A small capstan (Simmonds, Dict. Trade, 1858). b. A broad-bully hammer (Raymond, Mining Gloss.).
Hence Cat-head v. to cat the anchor.
1874. Chamb. Jrnl., 10 Oct., 651/1 (Hoppe). Now let us ‘cat-head our anchor, top our boom, and fill away for the shores.’
