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hammock

1. A swinging couch or bed, usually made of netting or canvas about six feet wide, suspended by clews or cords at the ends.

2. A piece of land thickly wooded, and usually covered with bushes and vines. Used also adjectively; as, hammock land. Hammock nettings, formerly, nets for stowing hammocks; now, more often, wooden boxes or a trough on the rail, used for that purpose.

Origin: a word of indian origin: cf. Sp. Hamaca. Columbus, in the Narrative of his first voyage, says: A great many indians in canoes came to the ship to-day for the purpose of bartering their cotton, and hamacas, or nets, in which they sleep..