BACKSTAY • FREE-TRANSLATOR.COM • Definition of Backstay

... murmurs, and calls to "light up the sail to windward"; and presently from the fore-topsail-yard comes the cry, ringing and clear,—"Haul away to leeward!"—repeated next moment from the main and echoed from the mizzen. Sheltered by the weather-bulwarks, and with one arm round a mizzen-backstay, there is a capital place to watch all this and feel the glorious thrill of the sea,—to look down the sloping deck into the black billows, with here and there a white patch of foam, and while the organ-harp overhead is sounding its magnificent symphony. It is but wood and ...

— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various

... see, must be the topmast backstay; and this the forestay; and that the topmast stay. Is it not so?" ...

— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston