spider cleaning
n.— «As high-rise buildings mushroom across the city, facade cleaners—the ones who dangle from ropes to give those glass houses the impeccable look—are finding more jobs and more challenges.…“If a person hangs from a rope and cleans, the process is called ‘spider cleaning.’ When he sits on a seat attached to a pulley, it is ‘rig cleaning.’ In cases of spider cleaning, the rope will be connected to a pillar or an ‘I’ joint on the top of the terrace.”» —“Heights of cleanliness” by A Selvaraj Times of India Mar. 2, 2009. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
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...
David from Plymouth, Wisconsin, wonders about the expression a cord of wood. The phrase goes back to the 17th century and has to do with using a cord to measure a specific quantity of stacked wood. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of...