ABOVE-BOARD. Over the deck; a term used for open fair dealing, without artifice or trick.
ABOX. A word used in veering for aback, alluding to the situation of the head-yards in paying off. (See Brace Aback.)—Lay the head-yards abox—in former times, and even at present, many good seamen prefer to lay the head-yards square, or abox, to heave-to. It brings the vessel more under command for sudden evolution, wearing, or staying.
ABRAHAM-MEN. A cant term for vagabonds, who formerly begged about under pretence of having been discharged destitute from ships and hospitals; whence an idle malingerer wanting to enter the doctor's list is said to "sham Abraham." From a ward in Bedlam which was appropriated for the reception of idiots, which was named Abraham: it is a very old term, and was cited by Burton in the Anatomy of Melancholy so far back as 1621.
ABRASE, To. To dubb or smooth planks.
ABRASION. The rubbing off or wearing away of the parts of a rock, or of the soil, by the impinging and friction of other bodies.
ABREAST. Side by side, parallel, or opposite to; generally used in opposition to abaft or afore.—Line abreast means a fleet advancing or retreating uniformly on a line parallel with the beam.—Abreast of a place, is directly off it; a direction at right angles with the keel or ship's length. In the army the term was formerly used for any number of men in front; but at present they are determined by files.—Abreast. Within-board, signifies on a parallel with the beam.
ABRID. A pintle-plate.
ABROACH. On tap, in use; spoken of barrels of beer or other liquors.
ABROAD. Synonymous with foreign, or being on a foreign station. Also an old word for spread; as, all sail abroad.
ABRUPT. A word applied to steep, broken, or craggy cliffs and headlands, especially such as are bold-to and precipitous.
ABSCISS. A part either of the diameter or the transverse axis of a conic section, intercepted between the vertex or any other fixed point and a semi-ordinate.—Abscission of a planet, its being outstripped by another, which joins a third one before it.
ABSENCE. A permission occasionally obtained, on urgent affairs, by officers to quit their duties.
ABSOLUTE. Anything free from conditions.—Absolute equations, the sum of the optic and eccentric equation, or the anomalies arising from a planet's not being equally distant from the earth at all times, and its motion not being uniform.—Absolute gravity is the whole force with which a body tends downwards.
ABSORPTION. A term formerly used for the sinking of islands and tracts of land, instead of subsidence.
ABSQUATULATE. See Squatter.
ABSTRACT. A brief register of the warrant officer's stores, by which the supplies, expenses, and remains are duly balanced. An abstract log contains the most important subjects of a ship's log.
ABSTRACT MATHEMATICS, or Pure. The branch which investigates and demonstrates the properties of magnitude, figure, or quantity, absolutely and generally considered, without restriction to any species in particular; such as arithmetic and geometry.
A-BURTON. The situation of casks when they are stowed in the hold athwart ship, or in a line with the beam.
ABUT. When two timbers or planks are united endways, they are said to butt or abut against each other. (See Butt.)
ABYME. Places supposed to be the site of constant whirlpools, such as Charybdis, the Maelstrom, and others. It means generally an abyss.
ABYSS. A deep mass of waters; in hydrography it was synonymous with gulf.
ACADEMITE. An old term for an officer brought up at the Royal Navy Academy at Portsmouth, afterwards named the Royal Naval College.
ACAIR-PHUILL. Compounded of the British acair or anchor, and phuill, a pill, or harbour, and means a safe anchorage.
ACALEPHÆ. A class of marine animals of low organization, having a translucent jelly-like structure, and frequently possessing the property of stinging, whence their name (ἀκαλήφη, a nettle). The common jelly-fish (Medusa) and the Portuguese man-of-war (Physalia) are the best-known examples.
ACAST. The old word for lost or cast-away. In weighing anchor the head-yards are generally braced acast, to cause the vessel to cast in the direction. "Does she take acast?" is frequently the question of the officer abaft.
ACATER. An old word for purveyor of victuals, whence caterer, or superintendent and provider of a mess. Thus in Ben Jonson's "The Devil is an Ass"—
"He is my wardrobe-man, my acater, Cook, butler, and steward."
ACATES. Victuals; provisions purchased; delicious food; dainties.
ACATIUM. A word used in Roman naval affairs for a small boat, and also the main-mast of a ship.
ACCELERATION. The increase of velocity in a moving body by the force of gravity. A planet is said to be accelerated when its actual diurnal motion exceeds its mean. In fixed stars the acceleration is the mean time by which they anticipate the sun's diurnal revolution, which is 3′ 56″ nearly.—Acceleration of the moon is the increase of her mean motion, caused by a slow change in the excentricity of the terrestrial orbit, and which has sensibly diminished the length of the moon's revolution since the time of the earliest observations.
ACCESS. Means of entry on board.
ACCESSIBLE. A place which can be approached by land or sea.
ACCLIVITY. The upward slope of an inclined cliff.
ACCOIL, To. To coil together, by folding round. (See Coil.)
ACCOLADE [ad and collum, Lat.] The ceremony of dubbing a knight, and the consequent embrace formerly customary on the occasion.
ACCOMMODATIONS. Cabins fitted for passengers.—Accommodation ladder, a convenient flight of steps fixed at the gangway, by which officers and visitors enter the ship.—Accommodation, the physical application of one thing to another by analogy.
ACCOMPANY, To. To sail together; to sail in convoy.
ACCOST, To. To pass within hail of a ship; to sail coastwise; to approach, to draw near, or come side by side.
ACCOUNT, Going upon. A phrase for buccaneering.
ACCOUNTANT-GENERAL of the Navy. Superintendent of pay and general accounts of the navy.
ACCOUNTS. The several books and registers of stores, provisions, slops, and contingents of a ship or fleet; and they are strictly enjoined to be correct, real, and precise, both in receipt and expenditure.—Account sales, a form of book-keeping in commerce.
ACCOUTREMENT. An old term for an habiliment, or part of the trappings and furniture of a soldier or knight; now generally used for the belts, pouches, and equipments of soldiers or marines.
ACCUL. A word used by old voyagers for the end of a deep bay; it is corrupted from cul de sac.
ACHATOUR. The old word for caterer of a mess.
ACHERNAR. A star of the first magnitude in the constellation Eridanus, called by navigators the "Spring of the River." It is invisible in our latitude. (α Eridani.) Properly should be acher nahr.
ACHIEVEMENT. A signal exploit; escutcheon; armorial bearings granted for achievement.
ACHROMATIC. An optical term applied to those telescopes in which aberration of the rays of light, and the colours dependent thereon, are partially corrected. (See