1851, Herman Melville, ,Cut your seizings and draw the poles, ye harpooneers!â€Silently obeying the order, the three harpooneers now stood with the detached iron part of their harpoons, some three feet long, held, barbs up, before him.
Such lashing used to temporarily immobilize the ends of a rope to prevent a knot from slipping or collapsing.
1977, Alistair Horne, A Savage War of Peace, New York Review Books 2006, p. 45:It is a world of seizing visual beauty, of shimmering whites and yellows that shift to glowing apricot, pink and violet with the sinking of the saturant sun.
