GUY, a rope used to keep steady any weighty body whilst it is hoisting or lowering, particularly when the ship is shaken by a tempestuous sea.
GUY is likewise a large slack rope, extending from the head of the main-mast to the head of the fore-mast, and having two or three large blocks fastened to the middle of it. This is chiefly employed to sustain the tackle used to hoist in and out the cargo of a merchant ship, and is accordingly removed from the mast-head as soon as the vessel is laden or delivered.
GUY'S CLIFF, in Warwickshire, a great cliff on the west side of the Avon and the north side of Warwick, where in the time of the Britons there was an oratory, and in that of the Saxons an hermitage, and where Guy, earl of Warwick, is said to have retired after being fatigued with the toils and pleasures of the world, to have built a chapel, and cohabited with the hermit. This hermitage was kept up till the reign of Henry VI. when Richard Beauchamp, earl of Warwick, established there a chantry, which derived its name from the king-maker, and, in memory of the famous Guy, erected a large statue in the chapel, eight feet in height, at the same time raising a roof over the adjacent springs.