Sailor's Word-book, A - C — Ad - Af
ACUTE-ANGLED TRIANGLE.
That which has all its angles acute.
ADAMANT.
The loadstone; the magnet--the sense in which it was held by early voyagers; but others considered it a "precyowse stone," or gem.
ADAMAS.
The moon in nautic horoscopes.
ADAPTER.
A brass tube to fit the eye-end of a telescope, into which all the eye-pieces will screw.
ADARRIS.
A word which Howell explains as the flower of sea-water.
ADDEL, OR ADDLE.
An old term for the putrid water in casks.
ADDICE, an adze.
Also the addled eggs of gulls and other sea-fowl.
ADDLINGS.
Accumulated pay or wages.
ADELANTADO.
A lieutenant of the king of Spain, but used by old English writers for "admiral."
ADHESION.
Consent to a proposal.
Union or temporary cohesion; as, two vessels forced into _adhesion_ by the pressure of the tide on their beam.
ADIT.
A space in ancient ships, in the upper and broadest part, at which people entered.
The _adit_ of a military mine, is the aperture by which it is dug and charged: the name is also applied to an air-hole or drift.
ADJACENT.
Lying close to another object; a word applied to the relative situations of capes or bays from the ship.
--_Adjacent angle_ is one immediately contiguous to another, so that they have one common side.
ADJOURN, TO.
To put off till another day.
_Adjournments_ can be made in courts-martial from day to day, Sundays excepted, until sentence is passed.
ADJUDICATION.
The act of adjudging prizes by legal decree.
Captors are compelled to submit the adjudication of their captures to a competent tribunal.
ADJUST, TO.
To arrange an instrument for use and observation; as, to adjust a sextant, or the escapement of a chronometer.
To set the frame of a ship.
ADJUSTMENT.
In marine insurance, the ascertaining and finally settling the amount of indemnity--whether of average or of salvage--which the insured (after all proper deductions have been made) is entitled to receive under the policy, when the ship is lost.
ADJUSTMENT OF THE COMPASS.
Swinging a ship to every point of bearing, to note the variation or error of the needle upon each rhumb, due to the local attraction of the iron, or the mass, on each separate compass bearing.
Thus, in lat.
76 deg.
N.
it was found to be +22 deg.
30' with the head W. S.
W.
, and -56 deg.
30' on the opposite bearing, or E. N.
E.
ADJUTANT.
[From Lat.
_adjuvo_, to help.
] A military assistant to field-officers.
The term has been applied to an assistant captain of a fleet.
It is indeed the duty performed by first lieutenants.
ADMEASUREMENT.
The calculation of proportions according to assumed rules, often ignorantly practised in estimating the tonnage of a ship.
ADMIRAL.
The derivation of this noble title from the Greek _almyros_, from the Latin _admirabilis_, from the Saxon _aenmereeal_, and from the French _aumer_, appear all fanciful.
It is extensively received that the Sicilians first adopted it from _emir_, the sea, of their Saracen masters; but it presents a kind of unusual etymological inversion.
The term is most frequent in old Romance; but the style and title was not used by us until 1286; and in 1294, William de Leybourne was designated "Amiral de la Mer du Roy d'Angleterre;" six years afterwards Viscount Narbonne was constituted Admiral of France; which dates nearly fix the commencement of the two states as maritime powers.
The _admiral_ is the chief commander of a fleet, but of this rank there are three degrees, distinguished by a flag at the fore, main, or mizen mast, according to the title of _admiral_, _vice-admiral_, or _rear-admiral_.
These were again subdivided according to their colour of red, white, or blue, which had to be likewise borne by the squadrons they respectively commanded.
(_See_ FLAG.
) In 1865 the colours were omitted, and the only flag now hoisted by ships of war is the white St. George's ensign, and for admirals the white St. George's cross at the main, fore, or mizen.
The _admiral of the fleet_ is the highest officer under the admiralty of Great Britain; it is rather an honorary distinction, and usually attained by seniority and service: when this officer serves afloat, he hoists the proud distinction of the Union flag at the main.
The _lord high-admiral_ was one of the principal officers of the state, who formerly decided all cases relating to the sea: he wore a gold call and chain, similar in form to that which has descended to the boatswain and his mate.
This dignity has been extinct for many years, and the duty merged into that of the lords-commissioners and admiralty court; in 1827, it was revived for a short time in the person of His Royal Highness the Duke of Clarence.
The epithet of _admiral_ was also formerly applied to any large or leading ship, without reference to flag; and is still used for the principal vessel in the cod and whale fisheries.
That which arrives first in any port of Newfoundland retains this title during the season, with certain rights of beach in flakes.
The master of the second ship becomes the vice-admiral, and the master of the third the rear-admiral.
ADMIRAL.
A beautiful and rare shell of the genus _Conus_; the varieties are designated the grand-admiral, the vice-admiral, the orange-admiral, and the extra-admiral.
ADMIRALTY.
An office for the administration of naval affairs, presided over by a lord high-admiral, whether the duty be discharged by one person, or by commissioners under the royal patent, who are styled lords, and during our former wars generally consisted of seven.
The present constitution of the Board of Admiralty comprises--the first lord, a minister and civilian as to office; four naval lords; one civil lord attending to accounts, &c. ; one chief secretary; one second secretary.
Two lords and one secretary form a legal Board of Admiralty wherever they may be assembled, under the authority of the board or its chief.
ADMIRALTY BLACK-BOOK.
_See_ BLACK-BOOK.
ADMIRALTY COURT.
The constitution of this court relatively to the legislative power of the king in council, is analogous to that of the courts of common law relatively to the parliament of the kingdom.
--_High Court of Admiralty_, a supreme court of law, in which the authority of the lord high-admiral is ostensibly exercised in his _judicial_ capacity for the trial of maritime causes of a civil nature.
Although termed the High Court of Admiralty, more properly this is the Court of Vice-Admiralty, and relates solely to civil and military matters of the sea, and sea boundaries, prizes, collisions, vessels or goods cast on the shore where the vice-admirals have civil jurisdiction, but no naval power, as the lord-lieutenants of counties are named in their patents "vice-admirals of the same;" in like manner all governors of colonies.
All cases in connection are tried by the Admiralty Court in London, or by our "courts of vice-admiralty and prize jurisdictions abroad."
Admirable as some of the decisions of this expensive tribunal have been, it has all the powers of the Inquisition in its practice, and has thereby been an instrument of persecution to some innocent navigators, while it has befriended notorious villains.
Besides this we have the Admiralty Court of Oyer and Terminer, for the trial of all murders, piracies, or criminal acts which occur within the limits of the country, on the coast-lines, at sea, or wherever the admiralty jurisdiction extends--the deck of a British ship included.
ADMIRALTY MIDSHIPMAN.
Formerly one who, having served the appointed time, and passed his examination for lieutenant, was appointed to a ship by the admiralty, and thus named in contradistinction to those who used to be rated by the captain; he generally had precedence for promotion to "acting orders."
ADONIS.
An anguilliform fish, about six inches long: it is of a golden colour, with a greenish tint, and has a white line from its very small gills to the tail.
ADORNINGS.
The carved work on the quarter and stern-galleries of men-of-war.
ADOWN.
The bawl of privateersmen for the crew of a captured vessel to go below.
Saxon, _adoun_.
ADREAMT.
Dozing; the sensation so often combatted with towards the end of a first or a middle watch, it being the state, as an old author has it, "between sleeping and waking."
ADRENT, OR ADREYNTE.
An old term for _drowned_.
ADRIFT.
Floating at random; the state of a boat or vessel broken from her moorings, and driven to and fro without control by the winds and waves.
Cast loose; cut adrift.
ADSCRIPTS.
Sometimes used for the tangents of arcs.
AD VALOREM.
Duties levied on commercial goods, according to their value.
ADVANCE, TO.
An old word, meaning to raise to honour.
ADVANCED POST.
A spot of ground seized by a party to secure their front.
A piquet or outpost.
ADVANCED SQUADRON.
One on the look-out.
--_Advance_, or _vanguard_, that division of a force which is next the enemy, or which marches before a body.
--_Advance fosse_, a ditch of water round the esplanade or glacis of a fortification.
--_Advance!
_ the order to marines and small-arm men to move forward.
ADVANCE-LIST.
The register by which two months' wages to the crew are paid, on first commission, and a quarter's to officers.
ADVANCEMENT.
Promotion to higher rank.
ADVANCE MONEY.
In men-of-war and most merchant ships the advance of two months' wages is given to the crew, previous to going to sea; the clearing off of which is called _working up the dead horse_.
ADVANCE NOTE.
A document issued by owners of a ship or their agents, promising to pay a seaman, or to his order, a sum of money in part of his wages, within a certain number of days after he has sailed in the ship.
Advance notes are quite negotiable before a seaman has taken his departure.
ADVANTAGE, OR VANTAGE-GROUND.
That which gives superiority of attack on, or defence against, an enemy; affording means of annoyance or resistance.
ADVENTURE.
An enterprise in which something is left to hazard.
--_A bill of adventure_ is one signed by the merchant, by which he takes the chances of the voyage.
ADVERSARY.
Generally applied to an enemy, but strictly an opponent in single combat.
ADVERSE.
The opposite of favourable; as, an _adverse_ wind.
ADVICE-BOAT.
A small fast-sailing vessel in advance of a fleet, employed to carry intelligence with all possible despatch.
They were first used in 1692, to gain tidings of what was transacting in Brest, previous to the battle of La Hogue.
ADVOCATE GENERAL.
An officer of the High Court of Admiralty, whose duty it is to appear for the lord high-admiral in that court, the court of delegates, or any other wherein his rights are concerned.
--_Judge-advocate of the navy_, a law officer appointed to watch over and direct proceedings connected with courts-martial.
--_Deputy judge-advocate_, an appointment made by the sudden selection of some secretary, or captain's clerk, to perform the duty at a court-martial (where no legal person is empowered), utterly ignorant of the law or the customs of the naval service.
ADZE, OR ADDICE.
A cutting tool of the axe kind, for dubbing flat and circular work, much used by shipwrights, especially by the Parsee builders in India, with whom it serves for axe, plane, and chisel.
It is a curious fact that from the polar regions to the equator, and southerly throughout Polynesia, this instrument and its peculiar adaptations, whether made of iron, basalt, nephrite, &c. , all preserve the same idea or identity of conception.
AEINAUTAE.
Senators of Miletus, who held their deliberations on board ship.
AERATAE.
Ancient ships fitted with brazen prows.
AEROLITES.
One of the many names given to those solid masses or stones which occasionally fall from the atmosphere to the surface of the earth.
The assumption of their periodicity cannot, as yet, be considered as confirmed.
AEROLOGY.
The rational doctrine or science of the air and its phenomena.
AEROMANCY.
Formerly the art of divining by the air, but now used for foretelling the changes in the weather, either by experience or by instruments.
AEROMETRY.
The science of measuring the air, its powers, pressure, and properties.
AESTIVAL.
Belonging to summer; the solstitial point whereby the sun's ascent above the equator is determined.
AESTUARY.
_See_ ESTUARY.
AEWUL.
An Anglo-Saxon term for a twig basket for catching fish.
AFEARD.
This is a very common expression for _afraid_, and though thought low, is a true archaism of our language, as seen in Chaucer, Shakspeare, and Ben Jonson.
Major Moor terms it an old and good word.
AFER.
The south-west wind of the Latins, and used by some of the early voyagers.
AFFAIR.
An indecisive engagement; a duel.
AFFECTED.
An algebraic term for an equation in which the unknown quantity rises to two or more several powers.
AFFECTIONATE FRIENDS.
An official inconsistent subscription, even to letters of reproof and imprest, used by the former Board of Commissioners of the Navy to such officers as were not of noble families or bore titles; the only British board that ever made so mean a distinction, equally kind with the regrets of the clergy on burning a heretic, or those of Walton in cutting a live fish _tenderly_.
It was probably adopted from James, Duke of York, who, when lord high-admiral, always so subscribed his official letters.
It is said that this practice was discontinued in consequence of a distinguished naval captain--a knight--adding, "your affectionate friend."
He was thereupon desired to "discontinue such an expression," when he replied, "I am, gentlemen, no longer your affectionate friend, J. Phillimore."
AFFIDAVIT.
A declaration upon oath, weakened in importance by its too frequent administration at custom-houses, lazarettos, &c. Declarations are now substituted in the case of naval officers.
AFFIRMATIVE.
The positive sign or quantity in algebra; also signal flag or pendant by which a request or order is answered.
AFFLUENT.
A stream flowing directly into another stream; a more specific term than tributary.
AFFORCIAMENT.
An old term for a fortress or stronghold.
AFFREIGHTMENT.
A contract for the letting the vessel, or a part of her for freight.
(_See_ CONTRACT OF AFFREIGHTMENT.
) AFLOAT.
Borne up and supported by the water; buoyed clear of the ground;
also used for being on board ship.
AFORE.
A Saxon word opposed to abaft, and signifying that part of the ship which lies forward or near the stem.
It also means farther forward;
as, the galley is _afore_ the bitts.
--_Afore_, the same as _before_ the mast.
--_Afore the beam_, all the field of view from amidship in a right angle to the ship's keel to the horizon forward.
AFORE THE MAST.
_See_ BEFORE THE MAST.
AFOUNDRIT.
An archaism of _sunk_ or _foundered_.
AFRAID.
One of the most reproachful sea-epithets, as not only conveying the meaning being struck with fear, but also implies rank cowardice.
(_See_ AFEARD.
) AFT--a Saxon word contradistinctive of _fore_, and an abbreviation of _abaft_--the hinder part of the ship, or that nearest the stern.
--_Right aft_ is in a direct line with the keel from the stern.
--_To haul aft a sheet_ is to pull on the rope which brings the clue or corner of the sails more in the direction of the stern.
--The mast _rakes aft_ when it inclines towards the stern.
AFT-CASTLE.
An elevation on the after-part of our ships of war, opposed to forecastle, for the purpose of fighting.
AFTER.
A comparative adjective, applied to any object in the hind part of a ship or boat; as, the _after_-cabin, the _after_-hatchway, &c. --_After_ sails, yards, and braces--those attached to the main and mizen masts.
Opposed to _fore_.
AFTER-BODY.
That part of the ship's hull which is abaft the midships or dead-flat, as seen from astern.
The term is, however, more particularly used in expressing the _figure_ or _shape_ of that part of the ship.
(_See_ DEAD-FLAT.
) AFTER-CLAP.
Whatever disagreeable occurrence takes place after the consequences of the cause were thought at an end; a principal application being when a ship, supposed to have struck, opens her fire again.
This is a very old English word, alluding to unexpected events happening after the seeming end of an affair; thus Spenser, in "Mother Hubbard's Tale"-- "And bad next day that all should readie be, But they more subtill meaning had than he: For the next morrowes mede they closely ment, For feare of _after-claps_, for to prevent."
AFTER-END.
The stern of a ship, or anything in her which has that end towards the stern.
AFTER-FACE.
_See_ BACK OF THE POST.
AFTER-GUARD.
The men who are stationed on the quarter-deck and poop, to work the after-sails.
It was generally composed of ordinary seamen and landsmen, constituting with waisters the largest part of the crew, on whom the principal drudgery of the ship devolved.
At present the crews of ships-of-war are composed chiefly of able and ordinary seamen--landsmen are omitted.
AFTER-LADDER leads to captain's and officers' quarters, and only used by officers.
AFTERMOST.
The last objects in a ship, reckoned from forwards; as, the _aftermost_ mast, _aftermost_ guns, &c. AFTERNOON-WATCH.
The men on deck-duty from noon till 4 P. M. AFTER-ORDERS.
Those which are given out after the regular issue of the daily orders.
AFTER-PART.
The locality towards the stern, from dead-flat; as, in the _after-part_ of the fore-hold.
AFTER-PEAK.
The contracted part of a vessel's hold, which lies in the run, or aftermost portion of the hold, in contradistinction to _fore-peak_.
Both are the sharp ends of the ship.
AFTER-RAKE.
That part of the hull which overhangs the after-end of keel.
AFTER-SAILS.
All those on the after-masts, as well as on the stays between the main and mizen masts.
Their effect is to balance the head-sails, in the manner that a weather-cock or vane is moved, of which the main-mast must be considered the pivot or centre.
The reverse of _head-sails_.
"Square the after-yards," refers to the yards on the main and mizen masts.
AFTER-TIMBERS.
All those timbers abaft the midship section or bearing part of a vessel.
AFTMOST.
The same as _aftermost_.
AFTWARD.
In the direction of the stern.
