grappling iron n.
1. in pl., handcuffs.
![]() | Lex. Balatronicum. | |
![]() | Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue. | |
![]() | Wreck Ashore I iv: I hope the bailiffs have not laid their grappling irons on young Miles. | |
![]() | Pickings from N.O. Picayune (1847) 113: He is sure to lay his grappling irons on me and take me right off to the watchhouse. |
2. (also grabbling irons) the hand; in pl., the fingers; the arms.
![]() | Cork Examiner 14 June 2/6: Well you see, messmates, my chummy and I hailed her, when she immediately threw out her grappling irons, and lugged us along. | |
![]() | Jack Harold 57: One Arm’d Bill [...] said [...] ‘although I’ve got no larnin’, and have lost one of my grappling-irons, I feel myself among pals and brothers’. | |
![]() | Kendal Mercury 14 Feb. 3/3: Our grappling irons (hands) burnt like a lump of salt junk (beef). | |
, , | ![]() | Sl. Dict. |
![]() | Man about Town 13 Nov. 79/3: [of a falcon’s talons] [H]is ‘grappling irons’ were a ‘caution’ — at least to me. | |
![]() | Aus. Sl. Dict. 33: Grappling Irons, the hands. | |
![]() | Und. Speaks. | |
![]() | Current Sl. II:2 16: Grappling irons, n. Arms. |
3. (US) in pl., spurs.
![]() | Cowboy 116: Each spur, or ‘grappling iron,’ as slang often dubbed it, was kept in place [...] by a ‘spur-leather’. | |
![]() | (con. WWI) Gloss. of Sl. [...] in the A.I.F. 1921–1924 (rev. t/s) n.p.: grappling irons. Spurs. |