GANNET. The Sula bassana, or solan goose: a large sea bird of the family Pelecanidæ, common on the Scottish coasts.

GANNY-WEDGE. A thick wooden wedge, used in splitting timber.[335]

GANTAN. An Indian commercial measure, of which 17 make a baruth.

GANT-LINE. Synonymous with girt-line (which see).

GANT-LOPE, or Gauntlope (commonly pronounced gantlet). A race which a criminal was sentenced to run, in the navy or army, for any heinous offence. The ship's crew, or a certain division of soldiers, were disposed in two rows face to face, each provided with a knotted cord, or knittle, with which they severely struck the delinquent as he ran between them, stripped down to the waist. This was repeated according to the sentence, but seldom beyond three times, and constituted "running the gauntlet."

GANTREE, or Gantril. A wooden stand for a barrel.

GANZEE. Corrupted from Guernsey. (See Jersey.)

GAP. A chasm in the land, which, when near, is useful as a landmark.

GAPE. The principal crevice or crack in shaken timber.—The seams gape, or let in water.

GARAVANCES. The old term for calavances (which see).

GARBEL. A word synonymous with garboard (which see).

GARBLING. The mixing of rubbish with a cargo stowed in bulk.

GARBOARD-STRAKE, or Sand-streak. The first range of planks laid upon a ship's bottom, next the keel, into which it is rabbeted, and into the stem and stern-post at the ends.

GARDE-BRACE. Anglo-Norman for armour for the arm.

GARE. See Gair-fowl. Also, the Anglo-Saxon for ready. (See Yare.)

GARETTE. A watch-tower.

GARFANGLE. An archaic term for an eel-spear.

GAR-FISH. The Belone vulgaris, or bill-fish, the bones of which are green. Also called the guard-fish, but it is from the Anglo-Saxon gar, a weapon.

GARGANEY. The Querquedula circia, a small species of duck, allied to the teal.

GARLAND. A collar of ropes formerly wound round the head of the mast, to keep the shrouds from chafing. Also, a strap lashed to a spar when hoisting it in. Also, a large rope grommet, to place shot in on deck. Also, in shore-batteries, a band, whether of iron or stone, to retain shot together in their appointed place.

Also, the ring in a target, in which the mark is set. Also, a wreath made by crossing three small hoops, and covering them with silk and ribbons, hoisted to the main-topgallant-stay of a ship on the day of the captain's wedding; but on a seaman's wedding, to the appropriate mast to which he is stationed. Also, a sort of cabbage-net, whose opening is extended by a hoop, and used by sailors to contain their day's provisions, being hung up to the beams within their berth, safe from cats, rats, ants, and cockroaches.

GARNET. A sort of purchase fixed to the main-stay of a merchant-ship, and used for hoisting the cargo in and out at the time of loading or delivering her. A whip.—Clue-garnet. (See Clue and Clue-garnets.)[336]

GARNEY. A term in the fisheries for the fins, sounds, and tongues of the cod-fish.

GARNISH. Profuse decoration of a ship's head, stern, and quarters. Also money which pressed men in tenders and receiving ships exacted from each other, according to priority.

GARR. An oozy vegetable substance which grows on ships' bottoms.

GARRET, or Garita. A watch-tower in a fortification; an old term.

GARRISON. A military force guarding a town or fortress; a term for the place itself; also for the state of guard there maintained.

GARRISON GUNS. These are more powerful than those intended for the field; and formerly nearly coincided with naval guns; but now, the introduction of armour-plating afloat leads to furnishing coast-batteries with the heaviest guns of all.

GARRISON ORDERS. Those given out by the commandant of a garrison.

GARROOKA. A fishing-craft of the Gulf of Persia.

GARTERS. A slang term for the ship's irons or bilboes.

GARTHMAN. One who plies at a fish-garth, but is prohibited by statute from destroying the fry of fish.

GARVIE. A name on our northern shores for the sprat.

GASKET. A cord, or piece of plaited stuff, to secure furled sails to the yard, by wrapping it three or four times round both, the turns being at a competent distance from each other. —Bunt-gasket ties up the bunt of the sail, and should consequently be the strongest; it is sometimes made in a peculiar net form. In some ships they have given place to beckets. —Double gaskets.

Passing additional frapping-lines round the yards in very stormy weather. —Quarter-gasket. Used only for large sails, and is fastened about half-way out upon the yard, which part is called the quarter. —Yard-arm gasket. Used for smaller sails; the end is made fast to the yard-arm, and serves to bind the sail as far as the quarter-gasket on large yards, but extends quite into the bunt of small sails.

GAS-PIPE. A term jocularly applied to the newly-introduced breech-loading rifle.

GAT. A swashway, or channel amongst shoals.

GATE. The old name for landing-places, as Dowgate and Billingsgate; also in cliffs, as Kingsgate, Margate, and Ramsgate; those in Greece and in Italy are called scala. Also, a flood, sluice, or water gate.

GATE, or Sea-gate. When two ships are thrown on board one another by a wave, they are said to be in a sea-gate.

GATHER AFT A SHEET, To. To pull it in, by hauling in slack.

GATHER WAY, To. To begin to feel the impulse of the wind on the sails, so as to obey the helm.

GATH-LINN. A name of the north polar star; two Gaelic words, signifying ray and moisture, in allusion to its subdued brightness.

GATT. A gate or channel, a term used on the Flemish coast and in the Baltic. The Hellegat of New York has become Hell Gate.[337]

GAUB-LINE. A rope leading from the martingale in-board. The same as back-rope.

GAUGE. See Gage.

GAUGE. An instrument for measuring shot, wads, &c. For round shot there are two kinds, viz. the high gauge, a cylinder through which the shot must pass; and the low gauge, a ring through which it must not pass.

GAUGE-COCKS. A neat apparatus for ascertaining the height of the water in a steamer's boiler.

GAUGE-ROD. A graduated iron for sounding the pump-well.

GAUGNET. The Sygnathus acus, sea-needle, or pipe-fish.

GAUNTLET. (See Girt-line.) Also, a rope round the ship to the lower yard-arms, for drying scrubbed hammocks. Of old the term denoted the armed knight's iron glove. (See Gant-lope, for running the gauntlet.)

GAUNTREE. The stand for a water or beer cask.

GAUNTS. The great crested grebe in Lincolnshire.

GAUT, or Ghaut. In the East Indies, a landing-place; and also a chain of hills, as the Western Gauts, on the Mysore coast.

GAVELOCK. An iron crow. Of old, a pike; thus in Arthur and Merlin—

GAVER. A Cornish name for the sea cray-fish.

GAW. A southern term for a boat-pole.

GAWDNIE. The dragonet, or yellow gurnard; Callionymus lyra.

GAW-GAW. A lubberly simpleton.

GAWKY. A half-witted, awkward youth. Also, the shell called horse-cockle.

GAWLIN. A small sea-fowl which the natives of the Western Isles of Scotland trust in, as a prognosticator of the weather.

GAWN-TREE. See Gantree.

GAWPUS. A stupid, idle fellow.

GAWRIE. A name for the red gurnard; Trigla cuculus.

GAZONS [Fr.] Sods of earth or turf, cut in wedge-shaped form, to line the parapet and face the outside of works.

GAZZETTA. The name of a small coin in the Adriatic and Levant. It was the price of the first Venetian newspaper, and thereby gave the name to those publications. In the Greek islands the word is used for ancient coins.

G.C.B. The initials for Grand Cross of the most honourable and Military Order of the Bath.

GEAR [the Anglo-Saxon geara, clothing]. A general name for the rigging of any particular spar or sail; and in or out of gear implies anything being fit or unfit for use.

GEARING. A complication of wheels and pinions, or of shafts and pulleys, &c.

GEARS. See Jeers.

GEE, To. To suit or fit; as, "that will just gee."

GELLYWATTE. An old term for a captain's boat, the original of jolly-boat. (See Captain Downton's voyage to India in 1614, where "she was sent to take soundings within the sands.")[338]

GENERAL. The commander of an army: the military rank corresponding to the naval one of admiral. The title includes all officers above colonels, ascending with qualifying prefixes, as brigadier-general, major-general, lieutenant-general, to general, above which is nothing save the exceptional rank of field-marshal and of captain-general or commander-in-chief of the land forces of the United Kingdom.

GENERAL AVERAGE. A claim made upon the owners of a ship and her cargo, when the property of one or more has been sacrificed for the good of the whole.

GENERAL BREEZO. See Breezo.

GENERALISSIMO. The supreme commander of a combined force, or of several armies in the field.

GENERAL OFFICERS. All those above the rank of a colonel.

GENERAL ORDERS. The orders issued by the commander-in-chief of the forces.

GENERAL SHIP. Where persons unconnected with each other load goods on board, in contradistinction to a chartered ship.

GENEVA PRINT. An allusion to the spirituous liquor so called,—

GENOUILLERE [Fr.] That part of a battery which remains above the platform, and under the gun after the opening of the embrasure. Of course a knee-step.

GENTLE. A maggot or grub used as a bait by anglers.

GENTLE GALE. In which a ship carries royals and flying-kites; force 4.

GENTLEMEN. The messmates of the gun-room or cockpit—as mates, midshipmen, clerks, and cadets.

GEOCENTRIC. As viewed from the centre of the earth.

GEO-GRAFFY. A beverage made by seamen of burnt biscuit boiled in water.

GEOGRAPHICAL POSITION. See Position, Geographical.

GEORGIUM SIDUS. The planet discovered by Sir W. Herschel was so named at first; but astronomers adopted Uranus instead, as safer to keep in the neutral ground of mythology.

GERLETROCH. The Salmo alpinus, red char, or galley-trough.

GERRACK. A coal-fish in its first year.

GERRET. A samlet or parr.

GERRICK. A Cornish name for a sea-pike.

GERRON. A cant name for the sea-trout.

GESERNE. Anglo-Norman for battle-axe.

GESTLING. A meeting of the members of the Cinque Ports at Romney.

GET AFLOAT. Pulling out a grounded boat.

GET-A-PULL. The order to haul in more of a rope or tackle.

GHAUT. See Gaut.[339]

GHEE. The substitute for butter served out to ships' companies on the Indian station.

GHOST. A false image in the lens of an instrument.

GHRIME-SAIL. The old term for a smoke-sail.

GIB. A forelock.

GIBB. The beak, or hooked upper lip of a male salmon.

GIBBOUS. The form of a planet's disc exceeding a semicircle, but less than a circle.

GIB-FISH. A northern name for the male of the salmon.

GIBRALTAR GYN. Originally devised there for working guns under a low roof. (See Gyn.)

GIDDACK. A name on our northern coasts for the sand-launce or sand-eel, Ammodytes tobianus.

GIFFOOT. A Jewish corruption of the Spanish spoken at Gibraltar and the sea-ports.

GIFT-ROPE [synonymous with guest-rope]. A rope for boats at the guest-warp boom.

GIG. A light narrow galley or ship's boat, clincher-built, and adapted for expedition either by rowing or sailing; the latter ticklish at times.

GILDEE. A name in the Scottish isles for the Morhua barbata, or whiting pout.

GILGUY. A guy for tracing up, or bearing a boom or derrick. Often applied to inefficient guys.

GILL. A ravine down the surface of a cliff; a rivulet through a ravine. The name is often applied also to the valley itself.

GILLER. A horse-hair fishing line.

GILLS. Small hackles for drying hemp.

GILPY. Between a man and boy.

GILSE. A common misnomer of grilse (which see).

GILT. A cant, but old term for money, on which Shakspeare (Henry V. act ii. scene 1) committed a well-known pun—

GILT-HEAD, or Gilt-poll. The Sparus aurata, a fish of the European and American seas, with a golden mark between the eyes. (See Sedow.)