splice
n.n. a small piece of rope or cable that is cut out and replaced with a new piece. You use this when a rope is damaged and needs to be fixed.
n. a section of a rope or cable that has been removed and replaced with a new piece. Often used in nautical contexts to describe the repair of a damaged line.
The sailor replaced the damaged splice in the main line.
After the storm, the crew spent the afternoon repairing the splices in the anchor chains to ensure they were safe for the next voyage.
The quality of the splice is critical to the structural integrity of the rigging; a poorly executed repair can lead to catastrophic failure under heavy load.
Circa 1525, borrowed from Middle Dutch splissen (Modern Dutch splitsen); akin to Middle Dutch splitten (“to split”), German spleißen (“to split, splice”), Spliss (“split ends, hair breakage”), French épisser (also from Dutch). The Dutch word originally referred only to the fraying of the ropes' ends but was then also used for the entire process of fraying and retying; hence the peculiar semantic development from “split” to “join”. The same development occurred in German.