Definition of "shearpole"

shearpole

noun
plural shearpoles
1. A horizontal crosspiece.
  Quotations
  He then excavated under the upper edge as much as possible, so that the escaping air passed through and loosened up the material on that side, wedged up and strained the pipe as before, and, with a battering-ram made of a 12-in. square oak timber, 12 ft. long, and in the middle suspended from shearpoles, struck successive blows against the top of the pile; while it was desceending; it was thus quickly brought into position.
  1873, The Practical Magazine, volume 1, page 396
  The best example of these devices that I know of in Aberdeen is at the shearpoles, where the worm and wheel are used for the hoisting motion, the screw and nut for the derricking.
  1893 October 6, R.S. Allan, “Transmission of Power”, in The Electrical Engineer, volume 12
  The shearpole tradition is so strong that even in some national forests where regulations specifically prohibit cutting live trees, the rangers look the other way when they see freshly chopped shear poles supporting a tent.
  1979, Jock R. Bearse, Canoe Camper's Handbook, page 108
  1. (nautical) A horizontal beam that goes along the edge of the shroud to which the rigging is attached.
    Quotations
    so careful were our officers to keep the rattlins taught and straight, that we were obliged to go aloft upon the ropes and shearpoles with which the rigging was swifted in; and these were used as jury rattlins until we got close upon the coast
    1840, R[ichard] H[enry] D[ana], Jr., “CHAPTER XXXV”, in Two Years before the Mast. […] (Harper’s Family Library; no. CVI), New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers […]
    On the greasy deck of a whaling vessel, piled as high as the main shearpole with immense slabs of blubber sizzling in the heat of a tropic sun, the task is peculiarly disagreeable.
    1892 February, Charles A. McDougall, “John Daymer's Luck”, in Munsey's Magazine, volume 6, number 5, page 569
    The man who had trodden on his fingers stood holding on to the shearpole as if paralysed, but the skipper, who was just descending from aloft, saw what had happened and leapt clean over the intervening boat into the sea.
    1910, Frank Thomas Bullen, Fighting the Icebergs, page 41
    Their lengthy tale was a sorry one of vessels under-crewed in able seamen, with the deficiency made up with supernumeraries – “no sailors at all ......not able to go aloft ... couldn't put their feet above the shearpole; " of unfit vessels, “ a man has often to carry emigrant ship in his arms...for the hands are always at the pumps;" crowded conditions for emigrants, with little segregation of the sexes – in consequence "scarcely a single woman who emigrates who keeps her character on board ship;" and provisions so bad "that the biscuits are so full of maggots that the sailors say they're rich as Welch rabbits when toasted."
    2017, Lars U. Scholl, Merchants and Mariners: Selected Maritime Writings of David M. Williams, page 216
  2. A horizontal support that pivots on an upright, allowing a bridge to swing to the side, thereby permitting boats to pass.
    Quotations
    The last chapter consists of a glossary of 5,000 technical terms restricted to those used by workmen and others on bridge designing, construction and erection (not, however, including bobtail swing spans or shearpole draws); this covers 221 pages, and the book concludes with an index filling 61 pages.
    1917, The Railway Gazette - Volume 26, page 626
    In the late eighties and early nineties several new types of movable spans were advocated, including the pull-back draw, the jackknife span, the bob-tail swing, the horizontal-folding draw, the shearpole draw, the gyratory lift, the transbordeur, the double-cantilever swing, several types of bascule, and the vertical lift.
    1932, Journal of the Association of Chinese & American Engineers, page 10
    The shearpole bridge has opened to let the tugboat Relief pass.
    1994, Kathleen M. Middleton, Lawrence Township, page 80