foretopman
English
[edit]Etymology
[edit]Noun
[edit]foretopman (plural foretopmen)
- (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.