Naut. [f. CLOVE pa. pple. + HITCH.] A ‘hitch’ or mode of simply fastening a rope round a spar, etc., formed by passing the rope twice round in such a way that both ends pass under the center part of the loop in front; it thus appears united into one loop in front and ‘cloven’ into two parallel lines at the back.
1769. Falconer, Dict. Marine (1789), H h 3 b. They are … attached by a knot, called a clove-hitch, to … the shrouds.
1875. Bedford, Sailor’s Pocket Bk., viii. (ed. 2), 303. If … the dislocation takes place at the shoulder joint, a clove hitch by towel should be applied above the elbow joint.
fig. 1883. Stevenson, Treasure Isl., III. xv. 123. ‘You’re all in a clove hitch, aint you?’
Hence Clove-hitch v.
1875. Bedford, Sailor’s Pocket Bk., viii. (ed. 2), 304. While a towel is clove-hitched above the elbow joint.
1882. Nares, Seamanship (ed. 6), 65. A pair of bellropes clove-hitched on the bight round the mast-head.
