Ratlines

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A network of ropes or lines used on a ship to assist crew in climbing and moving about the rigging
2. A series of connections or pathways within a hierarchical structure, often implying secrecy or covert operations
3. A term referring to thin lines or riggings that provide support or access within complex systems, both literal and metaphorical

Etymology: "Ratlines" is the plural of "ratline," and the word's most interesting feature is that the "rat" in it has nothing to do with the rodent. The term is generally thought to be a corruption of "raddling," the name for the horizontal ropes fixed across the shrouds of a ship's rigging to form a ladder. Over time, speakers reshaped the unfamiliar word into two familiar ones, "rat" and "line," a process called folk-etymological reanalysis, and the rope ladder became a line for rats. The reanalysis makes sense as a sailor's joke, but it is a reshaping of the sound rather than a true ancestry. The ropes were always meant for people climbing the rigging, and the rodent link is the accident of a word that sounded like something else.

Synonyms: ropes, lines