A carabiner or karabiner (colloquially: crab, D ring, snap-link, krab, or 'biner) is a metal loop with a sprung or screwed gate. The loop part opposite the gate is referred to as the spine. It can quickly and reversibly connect components in safety-critical systems.
The word comes from "Karabinerhaken", meaning "hook for a carbine" in German. According to Fergus Fleming's book on the beginning of alpinism, "Killing Dragons: The conquest of the Alps", the British climbers derided aids like carabiners, ice axes and crampons for some time, leaving their development to Italian, French and other alpinists. Therefore, the term "carabiner" was never properly translated into an English counterpart.
Carabiners are widely used in sports requiring ropework, such as climbing, slacklining, caving ("Single Rope Technique"), canyoning, and sailing, and in industrial rope access work, such as construction or window cleaning.
You never realize how important one of these guys are until you've used one, taken it off of your keys, and then in turn, lost those keys cuz you thought they were hooked to your belt-loop by the... more
You never realize how important one of these guys are until you've used one, taken it off of your keys, and then in turn, lost those keys cuz you thought they were hooked to your belt-loop by the caribiner you felt that you didn't need anymore.