A Sea Painter is a Rope, Not a Naval Picasso

Mark in Bismarck, North Dakota, spent years as a sailor, and wonders about the term sea painter, meaning “a rope attached to a lifeboat.” Why painter? The word may derive from Middle French pendeur meaning “a kind of rope that hangs,” literally, something that suspends, from pendre, meaning “to hang,” a relative of such “hanging” words as pendant, pendulum, pending, and pendulous. The word painter took on the meaning of “a rope for hanging a boat onto the side of a ship.” Metaphorically, by extension to slip the painter or to cut the painter means “to break free.” This is part of a complete episode.