Also (in sense 2) jacob-ladder. [In reference to Gen. xxviii. 12.]
1. A common garden plant, rarely found wild in Britain (Polemonium cæruleum) having corymbs of blue (or white) flowers; so called from the ladder-like appearance of its closely pinnate leaves.
Popularly or locally applied also to Solomon’s Seal, and various other plants.
1733. Miller, Gard. Dict., Polemonium … Greek Valerian, or Jacob’s Ladder.
1794. Martyn, Rousseau’s Bot., xvi. 189. Greek Valerian or Jacob’s Ladder.
1882. Garden, 3 June, 380/2. A white Jacob’s-ladder … with purple throat,… a very delicate flower.
2. Naut. A rope ladder with wooden steps for ascending the rigging from the deck.
1840. Marryat, Poor Jack, xxviii. The youngster runs to the jacob-ladder of the main-rigging.
c. 1860. H. Stuart, Seaman’s Catech., 31. It is used … for Jacob’s ladders.
1882. Nares, Seamanship (ed. 6), 179. Let go the … jacob’s ladder lanyards.
1898. Daily News, 9 May, 6/4. One [gun] cut the Jacob’s ladder of the Vicksburg adrift.
3. In fig. allusions to Gen. xxviii. 12.
1831. Carlyle, Sart. Res., II. v. Like mysterious priestesses, in whose hand was the invisible Jacob’s-ladder, whereby man might mount into very heaven.
1890. L. C. D’Oyle, Notches, 88. It seemed to climb the very edge of the gray bank of clouds,… a veritable Jacob’s Ladder, stretching away into the heavens,… meet for angels’ feet to tread.
4. A frequent local name or nickname of a high and steep flight of steps.
c. 1895. Proposals to do away with the bridge over the reservoir and railway at Oxford, known as Jacob’s Ladder.
1900. Daily News, 13 March, 5/1. A feature of the island [St. Helena] is ‘Jacob’s Ladder,’ a wooden staircase of 699 steps, with an average slope of 39 degrees to the vertical.
