Rigging is all the ropes and wires that hold up and control a ship's masts and sails. Standing rigging, running rigging, up in the rigging.
Standing rigging holds the mast up and does not move; running rigging is the ropes that raise and trim the sails. In a theatre or a circus, the rigging is the overhead structure of bars and lines from which everything hangs. There is a separate sense from a separate verb: rigging an election or a market means dishonestly fixing the result. Note rig, both the noun and the verb.
1nounriggingThe ropes and wires that hold up a ship's masts.
“The rigging on that boat is about a mile of rope in total.”
2noundishonestThe dishonest fixing of a result.
“The opposition accused the government of vote rigging after the election.”
rigging is an arrangement of ropes, or a fixing.
The word comes from the verb rig, of Scandinavian origin, meaning to fit out a ship. The dishonest sense arrived in the nineteenth century from the same idea of arranging things beforehand.
Middle English
riggyng
English, today
rigging
From Middle English riggyng, ryggyng, riggynge, equivalent to rig + -ing.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA