Other forms: hatchways
A hatchway is an opening in a deck or a floor. Down the hatchway, close the hatchway, the cargo hatchway.
On a ship it is the opening and the hatch is the cover for it, which is a distinction sailors keep and nobody else does. In heavy weather every hatchway is sealed, which is where battening down comes from.
1nounhatchwayAn opening in a deck or a floor.
“The sailor climbed down through the hatchway into the dark hold.”
hatchway is an opening.
Hatch plus way, from Old English haecc, a gate or grating.
From hatch + way.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in A Song of Ice and Fire