Research Note

Catheads

John Harland

The term cathead goes back to the 17th C, being used by both Mainwaring and Boteler in their dictionaries.

One author who thought it was connected with a lion mask was R C Leslie Old Sea Wings, Ways and Words (1890) page 154:

"The term catheads used for the two stout projecting timbers on either bow, from which the anchor hung clear of the ship before letting go, was no doubt connected with the fact of a lion or large cat usually carved upon the end of the item."

Illustration from Röding's Allgemeines Wörterbuch der Marine. c. 1794.

However, there was another type of cat-head connected with the anchor-cable and windlass, namely a square pin thrust into one of the holes for a handspike. When at anchor, the cable was secured to this with a seizing.

The English term for this pin was a 'Norman'. However, in German it was called a Kattenkopf (cat-head), and in this case it is a reference to the traditional way the top was notched and chamfered off so that in section, it resembled the ears of a cat.
{John Harland}

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