Jacob's ladder

English

Creeping Jacob’s ladder (2), Polemonium reptans

ladder to the upper masts (3)

toy (4)

electrical device (7)

Alternative forms

Jacob's-ladder, Jacob's Ladder

Etymology

After the Biblical Jacob's Ladder.

Noun

Jacob 's ladder (plural Jacob's ladders)

(biblical) A ladder leading to heaven.
- 1691, John Bunyan, “The Jerusalem Sinner Saved”, in The Works of John Bunyan‎, volume 1:
  Jacob's ladder; Christ is Jacob's ladder that reacheth up to heaven; and he that refuseth to go by this ladder thither, will scarce by other means get up so high.
A flowering plant of the genus Polemonium.
- 1859, George Eliot [pseudonym; Mary Ann Evans], chapter XV, in Adam Bede , volume I, Edinburgh, London: William Blackwood and Sons, →OCLC, book first:
  Hetty could have cast all her past life behind her and never cared to be reminded of it again. I think she had no feeling at all towards the old house, and did not like the Jacob's Ladder and the long row of hollyhocks in the garden better than other flowers—perhaps not so well.
- 1926, Edith S. Clements, Flowers of Mountain and Plain‎, 3rd edition, New York: The H. W. Wilson Company:
  Jacob’s Ladder doubtless receives its name from the ladder-like leaves. The flowers are delicately blue with white tubes and are clustered on graceful stems a foot tall or less. They may be found in spruce forests on the mountains at 8000-14000 ft. and bloom in summer, often so abundantly as to form a blue carpet on the forest floor.
(nautical) A rope ladder from the ratline to the upper mast.
- 1891 November 28, W. J. Gordon, “Rigging and Rigs”, in Golden Days for Boys and Girls‎, volume XIII, number 1:
  And this is one of the signs by which you can tell a man-of-war from a merchantman, for in war-ships the catch ratline is on the aftermost shroud instead of on the foremost. In a man-of-war, too, the topgallant-rigging is never rattled down, as a Jacob's ladder leads from the topgallantmast-head down to the crosstrees; but this Jacob's ladder arrangement is found in many clippers.
A toy consisting of blocks of wood, held together by strings or ribbons, that appear to cascade downward as they flip over.
A pocketknife consisting of two handle segments joined by a pivot, with a blade connected by a second pivot to the end of one handle segment.
Coordinate term: balisong
(mathematics) A noncompact surface resembling a ladder made of handlebodies.
- 2000, Alberto Candel, Lawrence Conlon, Foliations (Graduate Studies in Mathematics), volume 23, American Mathematical Society, →ISBN, page 311:
  The infinite Loch Ness monster and Jacob's ladder (Figure 12.1.1) are diffeomorphic surfaces.
A high-voltage electrical device, often used as a visual effect in old movies, which has a pair of vertical electrodes that form an arc between them starting at the bottom, rising to the top, then repeating.
- 2016 April 20, “Teen kills himself trying YouTube science experiment”, in New York Post‎:
  Jacob’s Ladder displays are sometimes found in science museums and centers. In demonstrations, an electric spark jumps between two parallel wires when electrons fed into one of the wires repel each other, heating up the surrounding air so the spark rises with the hot air before dying at the top of the wires.
(UK) A serving of short ribs.
(UK, slang, obsolete) A ladder or run in a pair of tights.
- 1869, Belgravia, volume 7, page 198:
  […] because the left leg of her tights has exhibited symptoms of the defect in the warp known as a "Jacob's ladder."