derrick

noun

1. 1

   A device that is used for lifting and moving large objects.

   They count their ships full tale— / Their corn and oil and wine, / Derrick and loom and bale, / And rampart’s gun-flecked line; / City by City they hail: / “Hast aught to match with mine?”

   At some places it is possible to load or discharge a vessel without any expenditure on docks or wharves, by dealing with the cargo by hand, or by the ships derricks, or by means of floating discharging appliances while the vessel it moored to buoys in a tideway. […] At low tide it may be impracticable to use a ship's derricks [at a berth].

2. 2

   A framework that is constructed over a mine or oil well for the purpose of boring or lowering pipes.

3. 3

   obsoleteAn executioner responsible for hanging convicts; a hangman.

verb

1. 1

   To hoist with, or as if with, a derrick.

2. 2

   informalTo remove (a pitcher).

   Stinky, who had batted a bit over .200 with scant power (two home runs in 66 games in 1933), was being derricked by Navin.

   As a rule, when the twirler is derricked, it is because the members of the opposition are beginning to take undue familiarity with his offerings. But this is not always the reason.

Forms

plural

derricks

past tense

derricked

past participle

derricked

present participle

derricking

third person singular

derricks