ropes

English dictionary entry

Meanings

noun
  1. plural of rope
  2. Basic skills of a job.
verb
  1. third-person singular simple present indicative of rope
name
  1. A surname.

Pronunciation

/ɹoʊps/ /ɹəʊps/ en-us-ropes.ogg

Word forms

ropes

Etymology

In the sense of skills, a now figurative use that originally referred to literal ropes. The phrase “he knows the ropes” written on a seaman’s discharge meant that he was inexperienced and only familiar with a ship’s principal ropes.

This entry uses open data from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA/GFDL). Word forms are used for search and are not indexed as separate pages.