Ropes
Ropes (name) means an English surname. Example: “The Ropes family settled in New England in the seventeenth century.”
Fill the gap
Can you complete this real example?
The _____ family settled in New England in the seventeenth century.
Etymology
In the sense of skills, a now figurative use that originally referred to literal ropes. The phrase “he knows the ropes” written on a seaman’s discharge meant that he was inexperienced and only familiar with a ship’s principal ropes.