Does anyone know the names of the parts of a door bolt? The ordinary kind you'd find on a steel door in a military building (don't ask...)

I need the proper name for the bit you hold to slide it (handle?) and also for the bit that the nose of the actual bolt slides into, that's fastened to the door frame.

My characters are waiting patiently until I have the right words to rescue them with, but they're old, and I'm worried about hypothermia...

Emma

Emma, I have a gut feeling I know the answers, but can't remember them. I think the bit you slide is actually the bolt (rather than the whole mechanism) and the bit the bolt slide into might be called the keep – but I'm not sure.

So I googled ‘history of door bolts’ and found this site.

http://products.ihs.com/cis/Doc.aspx?AuthCode=&DocNum=260696

It looks like you might have to register to get more info, but I'm sure they’ll have the answers.

In the meantime - get the heating on!

Dee

Hi Emma,

I think that it is just called a bolt and the bit it slides into is called the "keeper". It could be a "barrel bolt" if it is round. There are a few terms here but this site doesn't clarify keeper too well. My husband, the joiner, says its certainly a keeper but he doesn't have a name for the part you hold on the bolt. He would just call it a handle!!!

It could also be called a "pad bolt" which you can find pictures of if you google for images.

Hope this is of help.

Dee and Eve, thank you both! That's a great help, and 'keeper' is raising all sorts of interesting metaphors... Where would I be without WW and WW spouses?

Emma

A great place to find about about this kind of thing is Ironmongery Direct. It may seem like an odd term but joiners etc normally refer to handles, bells, and er, knockers as "door furniture".

<Added>

Come to think of it some of them probably describe ladies of a certain physique as being in possession of cracking door furniture.

Thanks, Griff. After everyone's help, I've got them safely out. Hot chocolate all round, and I don't think we'll need a doctor...

Isn't it odd, what things turn out to be hard to find out about. Vocabulary's so essential, and yet a simple thing like that, and you can spend half the afternoon trawling. Something infinitely more obscure, and a single Google search turns up the perfect site.

Emma

This isn't helpful but I want to take this slight opportunity to use the word sneck.

Is that something a posh person eats between meals ?

Yes a breadstick with parma ham wrapped round it is a sneck.

Just googled it and apart from meaning what I know it means it also means -according to Sam Spade anti-spam software- the sound made by deboursification. Suddenly apt.