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Gulliver’s Travels vocabulary
327 vocabulary words, including people, places, music, artists, etc.
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cable's length
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tags: [nautical] [unit]
► definition
Definition:one tenth of a nautical mile = 100 fathoms = 600 feetNote that it is almost as long as a furlong (660 feet).
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Uses:
We presently put right before it. It came very swiftly, whirling the water up in a pillar about 6 or 7 yards high. As yet I could not see any pendulous cloud from whence it might come; and was in hopes it would soon lose its force. In 4 or 5 minutes time it came within a cable's length of us and passed away to leeward; and then I saw a long pale stream coming down to the whirling water.
William Dampier. A Voyage to New Holland, Etc. in the Year 1699
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On the 5th of November, which was the beginning of summer in those parts, the weather being very hazy, the seamen spied a rock within half a cable’s length of the ship; but the wind was so strong, that we were driven directly upon it, and immediately split.
Jonathan Swift. Gulliver's Travels Into Several Remote Regions of the World (1726)
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They saw nothing but a strong eddy about three cables' length distant, as if the surface had been violently agitated.
Jules Verne. Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1870)
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