ridgepole
- n a beam laid along the edge where two sloping sides of a roof meet at the top; provides an attachment for the upper ends of rafters
- They also noted huge protuberances over the eyebrows and at the back of the head, an elevation like a ridgepole from front to back of the cranium.
- In the late '20s, a buffoon of a mayor named "Bossy" Gillis put Newburyport on many a front page with his antics: he festooned his ridgepole with chamber pots, planted tombstones .
- Given a boat which he does not know how to manage, he is sent to rescue a woman perched on an old cypress snag and a man clinging to the ridgepole of a cotton house.