foretopman

English

Etymology

From foretop +‎ -man.

Noun

foretopman (plural foretopmen)

1. (nautical) A sailor who controls the masts in the foretop.
   • 1924, Herman Melville, chapter 12, in Billy Budd‎^[1], London: Constable & Co.:

     It was a warm night for the latitude; and the Foretopman, whose watch at the time was properly below, was dozing on the uppermost deck whither he had ascended from his hot hammock

   • 2009 March 8, Alessandra Stanley, “The Vanishing Sidekick”, in New York Times‎^[2]:

     WHEN Jimmy Fallon showed up on NBC ’s “Late Night” last week without a sidekick, it looked like yet another sign that the Ed McMahon era is over; so many talk show hosts work solo that the second-banana position seems almost as obsolete as the foretopman or the Linotype operator.