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From Complete Book of The Sailor's Word-Book: An Alphabetical Digest of Nautical Terms, including Some More Especially Military and Scientific, but Useful to Seamen; as well as Archaisms of Early Voyagers, etc.
By Unknown Author
DETONATING HAMMER. A modern introduction into the Royal Navy for firing the guns. With the aid of an attached laniard, it is made to descend forcibly upon the percussion arm of the tube, and fires the piece instantaneously. It is, however, already generally superseded by the use of the friction-tube (which see).
DEVIATION. A voluntary departure from the usual course of the voyage, without any necessary or justifiable cause: a step which discharges the insurers from further responsibility. Liberty to touch, stay, or trade in any particular place not in the usual course of the voyage must be expressly specified in the contract, and even this is subordinate to the voyage. The cases of necessity which justify deviation are—1, stress of weather; 2, urgent want of repairs; 3, to join convoy; 4, succouring ships in distress; 5, avoiding capture or detention; 6, sickness; 7, mutiny of the crew. It differs from a change of voyage, which must have been resolved upon before the sailing of the ship.
(See Change. )—Deviation is also the attraction of a ship's iron on the needle. It is a term recently introduced to distinguish a sort of second variation to be allowed for in iron vessels.
DEVIL. A sort of priming made by damping and bruising gunpowder.
DEVIL-BOLTS. Those with false clenches, often introduced into contract-built ships.
DEVIL-FISH. The Lophius piscatorius, a hideous creature, which has also obtained the name of fish-frog, monk-fish, bellows-fish, sea-devil, and other appellatives significant of its ugliness and bad manners. There is also a powerful Raia, which grows to an immense size in the tropics, known as the devil-fish, the terror of the pearl-divers. Manta of Spaniards.
DEVILRY. Spirited roguery; wanton mischief, short of crime.
DEVIL'S CLAW. A very strong kind of split hook made to grasp a link of a chain cable, and used as a stopper.
DEVIL'S SMILES. Gleams of sunshine among dark clouds, either in the heavens or captain's face!
DEVIL'S TABLE-CLOTH. See Table-cloth.
DEVIL TO PAY AND NO PITCH HOT. The seam which margins the water-ways was called the "devil," why only caulkers can tell, who perhaps found it sometimes difficult for their tools. The phrase, however, means service expected, and no one ready to perform it. Impatience, and naught to satisfy it.
DEW-POINT. A meteorological term for the degree of temperature at which the moisture of the atmosphere would begin to precipitate; it may be readily ascertained by means of the hygrometer.[246]
DHOLL. A kind of dried split pea supplied in India to the navy.
DHONY, or Dhoney. A country trading-craft of India from 50 to 150 tons; mostly flat-bottomed. (See Doney.)
DHOW. The Arab dhow is a vessel of about 150 to 250 tons burden by measurement—grab-built, with ten or twelve ports; about 85 feet long from stem to stern, 20 feet 9 inches broad, and 11 feet 6 inches deep. Of late years this description of vessel has been well built at Cochin, on the Malabar coast, in the European style. They have a great rise of floor; are calculated for sailing with small cargoes; and are fully prepared, by internal equipment, for defence—many of them are sheathed on 21⁄2-inch plank bottoms, with 1-inch board, and the preparation of chunam and oil, called galgal, put between; causing the vessel to be very dry and durable, and preventing the encroachments of the worm or Teredo navalis. The worm is one of the greatest enemies in India to timber in the water, as the white ant (termites) is out of it.
On the outside of the sheathing board there is a coat of whitewash, made from the same materials as that between the sheathing and planks, and renewed every season they put to sea. They have generally one mast and a lateen sail. The yard is the length of the vessel aloft, and the mast rakes forward, for the purpose of keeping this ponderous weight clear in raising and lowering. The tack of the sail is brought to the stem-head, and sheets aft in the usual way. The halyards lead to the taffrail, having a pendant and treble purchase block, which becomes the backstay, to support the mast when the sail is set.
This, with three pairs of shrouds, completes the rigging, the whole made of coir rope. Several of these vessels were fitted as brigs, after their arrival in Arabia, and armed by the Arabs for cruising in the Red Sea and Arabian Gulf, as piratical vessels. It was of this class of vessel that Tippoo Sultan's navy at Onore consisted. The large dhows generally make one voyage in the season, to the southward of Arabia; taking advantage of the north-east monsoon to come down, and the south-west to return with an exchange cargo. The Arabs who man them are a powerful well-grown people, and very acute and intelligent in trade.
They usually navigate their ships to Bengal in perfect safety, and with great skill. This was well known to Captain Collier and his officers of the Liverpool frigate, when they had the trial cruise with the Imam of Muscat's fine frigate in 1820.
DIACLE. An old term for a boat-compass.
DIAGONAL BRACES, knees, planks, &c., are such as cross a vessel's timbers obliquely. (See Diagonal Trussing.)
DIAGONAL RIBBAND. A narrow plank made to a line formed on the half-breadth plan, by taking the intersections of the diagonal line with the timbers. (See Ribbands.)
DIAGONALS. A line cutting the body-plan diagonally from the timbers to the middle line. Diagonals are the several lines on the draughts, delineating the station of the harpings and ribs, to form the body by.
DIAGONAL TRUSSING. A particular method of binding and strengthening[247] a vessel internally by a series of riders and truss-pieces placed diagonally.
DIAMETER. In geometry, a right line passing through the centre of any circular figure from one point of its circumference to another.
DIAMETER, Apparent. The angle which the diameter of a heavenly body subtends at any time, varying inversely with its distance. The true is the real diameter, commonly expressed in miles.
DIAMOND-CUT. See Rhombus.
DIAMOND-KNOT. An ornamental knot worked with the strands of a rope, sometimes used for bucket-strops, on the foot-ropes of jib-booms, man-ropes, &c.
DIBBS. A galley term for ready money. Also, a small pool of water.
DICE. See Dyce.
DICHOTOMIZED. A term applied to the moon, when her longitude differs 90° from that of the sun, in which position only half her disc is illuminated.
DICKADEE. A northern name for the sand-piper.
DICK-A-DILVER. A name for the periwinkle on our eastern coasts.
DICKER-WORK. The timbering of tide-harbours in the Channel. Wattling between piles.
DICKEY. An officer acting in commission.—It's all dickey with him. It's all up with him.
DIDDLE, To. To deceive.
DIEGO. A very strong and heavy sword.
DIE ON THE FIN, To. An expression applied to whales, which when dying rise to the surface, after the final dive, with one side uppermost.
DIET. The regulated food for patients in sick-bays and hospitals.
DIFFERENCE. An important army term, meaning firstly the sum to be paid by officers when exchanging from the half to full pay; and, secondly, the price or difference in value of the several commissions.
DIFFERENCE OF LATITUDE. The distance between any two places on the same meridian, or the difference between the parallels of latitude of any two places expressed in miles of the equator.
DIFFERENCE OF LONGITUDE. The difference of any place from another eastward or westward, counted in degrees of the equator: that is, the difference between two places is an arc of the equator contained between their meridians, but measured in space on the parallel. Thus the difference of a degree of longitude in miles of the meridian would be—
DIFFERENTIAL OBSERVATION. Taking the differences of right ascension and declination between a comet and a star, the position of which has been already determined.
DIFFICULTY. A word unknown to true salts.[248]
DIGHT [from the Anglo-Saxon diht, arranging or disposing]. Now applied to dressing or preparing for muster; setting things in order.
DIGIT. A twelfth part of the diameter; a term employed to denote the magnitude of an eclipse; as, so many digits eclipsed.
DIKE. See Dyke.
DILL. An edible dark brown sea-weed, torn from the rocks at low-water.
DILLOSK. The dried leaves of an edible sea-weed. (See Dulce and Pepper-dulse.)
DILLY-WRECK. A common corruption of derelict (which see).
DIME. An American silver coin, in value the tenth of a dollar.
DIMINISHED ANGLE. In fortification, that formed by the exterior side and the line of defence.
DIMINISHING PLANK. The same as diminishing stuff (which see).
DIMINISHING STRAKES. See Black-strake.
DIMINISHING STUFF. In ship-building, the planking wrought under the wales, where it is thinned progressively to the thickness of the bottom plank.
DIMINUTION OF OBLIQUITY. A slow approximation of the planes of the ecliptic and the equator, at the present rate of 0·485″ annually.
DIMSEL. A piece of stagnant water, larger than a pond and less than a lake.
DING, To. To dash down or throw with violence.
DING-DONG. Ships firing into each other in good earnest.
DINGHEY. A small boat of Bombay, propelled by paddles, and fitted with a settee sail, the mast raking forwards; also, the boats in use on the Hooghly; also, a small extra boat in men-of-war and merchant ships.
DINGLE. A hollow vale-like space between two hills. A clough; also, a sort of boat used in Ireland, a coracle.
DINNAGE. See Dunnage.
DIP. The inclination of the magnetic needle towards the earth. (See Dipping-needle.) Also, the smallest candle formerly issued by the purser.
DIP, To. To lower. An object is said to be dipping when by refraction it is visible just above the horizon. Also, to quit the deck suddenly.
DIP of the Horizon. The angle contained between the sensible and apparent horizons, the angular point being the eye of the observer; or it is an allowance made in all astronomical observations of altitude for the height of the eye above the level of the sea.
DIPPED. The limb of the sun or moon as it instantly dips below the horizon.
DIPPER. A name for the water-ousel (Cinclus aquaticus). A bird of the Passerine order, but an expert diver, frequenting running streams in mountainous countries.
DIPPING-LADLE. A metal ladle for taking boiling pitch from the cauldron.
DIPPING-NEEDLE. An instrument for ascertaining the amount of the[249] magnet's inclination towards the earth; it is so delicately suspended, that, instead of vibrating horizontally, one end dips or yields to the vertical force. This instrument has been so perfected by Mr. R. W.
Fox of Falmouth, that even at sea in the heaviest gales of wind the dip could instantly, by magnetic deflectors, be ascertained to minutes, far beyond what heretofore could be elicited from the most expensive instruments, observed over 365 days on shore.
DIPPING-NET. A small net used for taking shad and other fish out of the water.
DIPS. See Lead-line.
DIP-SECTOR. An ingenious instrument for measuring the true dip of the horizon, invented by Dr. Wollaston, and very important, not only where the nature and quantity of the atmospherical refraction are to be examined, but for ascertaining the rates of chronometers, and the exact latitude in those particular regions where accidental refractions are very great, for the difference between the calculated dip and that observed by the sector may exceed three minutes. It is a reflecting instrument, of small compass, but requiring patience and practice in its use.
DIPSY. The float of a fishing-line.
DIRECT-ACTING ENGINE. A steam engine in which the connecting rod is led at once from the head of the piston to the crank, thus communicating the rotatory motion without the intervention of side-levers.
DIRECT FIRE. One of the five varieties into which artillerists usually divide horizontal fire (which see).
D., Part 4
DETONATING HAMMER. A modern introduction into the Royal Navy for firing the guns. With the aid of an attached laniard, it is made to descend forcibly upon the percussion arm of the tube, and fires the piece instantaneously. It is, however, already generally superseded by the use of the friction-tube (which see).
DEVIATION. A voluntary departure from the usual course of the voyage, without any necessary or justifiable cause: a step which discharges the insurers from further responsibility. Liberty to touch, stay, or trade in any particular place not in the usual course of the voyage must be expressly specified in the contract, and even this is subordinate to the voyage. The cases of necessity which justify deviation are—1, stress of weather; 2, urgent want of repairs; 3, to join convoy; 4, succouring ships in distress; 5, avoiding capture or detention; 6, sickness; 7, mutiny of the crew. It differs from a change of voyage, which must have been resolved upon before the sailing of the ship.
(See Change. )—Deviation is also the attraction of a ship's iron on the needle. It is a term recently introduced to distinguish a sort of second variation to be allowed for in iron vessels.
DEVIL. A sort of priming made by damping and bruising gunpowder.
DEVIL-BOLTS. Those with false clenches, often introduced into contract-built ships.
DEVIL-FISH. The Lophius piscatorius, a hideous creature, which has also obtained the name of fish-frog, monk-fish, bellows-fish, sea-devil, and other appellatives significant of its ugliness and bad manners. There is also a powerful Raia, which grows to an immense size in the tropics, known as the devil-fish, the terror of the pearl-divers. Manta of Spaniards.
DEVILRY. Spirited roguery; wanton mischief, short of crime.
DEVIL'S CLAW. A very strong kind of split hook made to grasp a link of a chain cable, and used as a stopper.
DEVIL'S SMILES. Gleams of sunshine among dark clouds, either in the heavens or captain's face!
DEVIL'S TABLE-CLOTH. See Table-cloth.
DEVIL TO PAY AND NO PITCH HOT. The seam which margins the water-ways was called the "devil," why only caulkers can tell, who perhaps found it sometimes difficult for their tools. The phrase, however, means service expected, and no one ready to perform it. Impatience, and naught to satisfy it.
DEW-POINT. A meteorological term for the degree of temperature at which the moisture of the atmosphere would begin to precipitate; it may be readily ascertained by means of the hygrometer.[246]
DHOLL. A kind of dried split pea supplied in India to the navy.
DHONY, or Dhoney. A country trading-craft of India from 50 to 150 tons; mostly flat-bottomed. (See Doney.)
DHOW. The Arab dhow is a vessel of about 150 to 250 tons burden by measurement—grab-built, with ten or twelve ports; about 85 feet long from stem to stern, 20 feet 9 inches broad, and 11 feet 6 inches deep. Of late years this description of vessel has been well built at Cochin, on the Malabar coast, in the European style. They have a great rise of floor; are calculated for sailing with small cargoes; and are fully prepared, by internal equipment, for defence—many of them are sheathed on 21⁄2-inch plank bottoms, with 1-inch board, and the preparation of chunam and oil, called galgal, put between; causing the vessel to be very dry and durable, and preventing the encroachments of the worm or Teredo navalis. The worm is one of the greatest enemies in India to timber in the water, as the white ant (termites) is out of it.
On the outside of the sheathing board there is a coat of whitewash, made from the same materials as that between the sheathing and planks, and renewed every season they put to sea. They have generally one mast and a lateen sail. The yard is the length of the vessel aloft, and the mast rakes forward, for the purpose of keeping this ponderous weight clear in raising and lowering. The tack of the sail is brought to the stem-head, and sheets aft in the usual way. The halyards lead to the taffrail, having a pendant and treble purchase block, which becomes the backstay, to support the mast when the sail is set.
This, with three pairs of shrouds, completes the rigging, the whole made of coir rope. Several of these vessels were fitted as brigs, after their arrival in Arabia, and armed by the Arabs for cruising in the Red Sea and Arabian Gulf, as piratical vessels. It was of this class of vessel that Tippoo Sultan's navy at Onore consisted. The large dhows generally make one voyage in the season, to the southward of Arabia; taking advantage of the north-east monsoon to come down, and the south-west to return with an exchange cargo. The Arabs who man them are a powerful well-grown people, and very acute and intelligent in trade.
They usually navigate their ships to Bengal in perfect safety, and with great skill. This was well known to Captain Collier and his officers of the Liverpool frigate, when they had the trial cruise with the Imam of Muscat's fine frigate in 1820.
DIACLE. An old term for a boat-compass.
DIAGONAL BRACES, knees, planks, &c., are such as cross a vessel's timbers obliquely. (See Diagonal Trussing.)
DIAGONAL RIBBAND. A narrow plank made to a line formed on the half-breadth plan, by taking the intersections of the diagonal line with the timbers. (See Ribbands.)
DIAGONALS. A line cutting the body-plan diagonally from the timbers to the middle line. Diagonals are the several lines on the draughts, delineating the station of the harpings and ribs, to form the body by.
DIAGONAL TRUSSING. A particular method of binding and strengthening[247] a vessel internally by a series of riders and truss-pieces placed diagonally.
DIAMETER. In geometry, a right line passing through the centre of any circular figure from one point of its circumference to another.
DIAMETER, Apparent. The angle which the diameter of a heavenly body subtends at any time, varying inversely with its distance. The true is the real diameter, commonly expressed in miles.
DIAMOND-CUT. See Rhombus.
DIAMOND-KNOT. An ornamental knot worked with the strands of a rope, sometimes used for bucket-strops, on the foot-ropes of jib-booms, man-ropes, &c.
DIBBS. A galley term for ready money. Also, a small pool of water.
DICE. See Dyce.
DICHOTOMIZED. A term applied to the moon, when her longitude differs 90° from that of the sun, in which position only half her disc is illuminated.
DICKADEE. A northern name for the sand-piper.
DICK-A-DILVER. A name for the periwinkle on our eastern coasts.
DICKER-WORK. The timbering of tide-harbours in the Channel. Wattling between piles.
DICKEY. An officer acting in commission.—It's all dickey with him. It's all up with him.
DIDDLE, To. To deceive.
DIEGO. A very strong and heavy sword.
DIE ON THE FIN, To. An expression applied to whales, which when dying rise to the surface, after the final dive, with one side uppermost.
DIET. The regulated food for patients in sick-bays and hospitals.
DIFFERENCE. An important army term, meaning firstly the sum to be paid by officers when exchanging from the half to full pay; and, secondly, the price or difference in value of the several commissions.
DIFFERENCE OF LATITUDE. The distance between any two places on the same meridian, or the difference between the parallels of latitude of any two places expressed in miles of the equator.
DIFFERENCE OF LONGITUDE. The difference of any place from another eastward or westward, counted in degrees of the equator: that is, the difference between two places is an arc of the equator contained between their meridians, but measured in space on the parallel. Thus the difference of a degree of longitude in miles of the meridian would be—
DIFFERENTIAL OBSERVATION. Taking the differences of right ascension and declination between a comet and a star, the position of which has been already determined.
DIFFICULTY. A word unknown to true salts.[248]
DIGHT [from the Anglo-Saxon diht, arranging or disposing]. Now applied to dressing or preparing for muster; setting things in order.
DIGIT. A twelfth part of the diameter; a term employed to denote the magnitude of an eclipse; as, so many digits eclipsed.
DIKE. See Dyke.
DILL. An edible dark brown sea-weed, torn from the rocks at low-water.
DILLOSK. The dried leaves of an edible sea-weed. (See Dulce and Pepper-dulse.)
DILLY-WRECK. A common corruption of derelict (which see).
DIME. An American silver coin, in value the tenth of a dollar.
DIMINISHED ANGLE. In fortification, that formed by the exterior side and the line of defence.
DIMINISHING PLANK. The same as diminishing stuff (which see).
DIMINISHING STRAKES. See Black-strake.
DIMINISHING STUFF. In ship-building, the planking wrought under the wales, where it is thinned progressively to the thickness of the bottom plank.
DIMINUTION OF OBLIQUITY. A slow approximation of the planes of the ecliptic and the equator, at the present rate of 0·485″ annually.
DIMSEL. A piece of stagnant water, larger than a pond and less than a lake.
DING, To. To dash down or throw with violence.
DING-DONG. Ships firing into each other in good earnest.
DINGHEY. A small boat of Bombay, propelled by paddles, and fitted with a settee sail, the mast raking forwards; also, the boats in use on the Hooghly; also, a small extra boat in men-of-war and merchant ships.
DINGLE. A hollow vale-like space between two hills. A clough; also, a sort of boat used in Ireland, a coracle.
DINNAGE. See Dunnage.
DIP. The inclination of the magnetic needle towards the earth. (See Dipping-needle.) Also, the smallest candle formerly issued by the purser.
DIP, To. To lower. An object is said to be dipping when by refraction it is visible just above the horizon. Also, to quit the deck suddenly.
DIP of the Horizon. The angle contained between the sensible and apparent horizons, the angular point being the eye of the observer; or it is an allowance made in all astronomical observations of altitude for the height of the eye above the level of the sea.
DIPPED. The limb of the sun or moon as it instantly dips below the horizon.
DIPPER. A name for the water-ousel (Cinclus aquaticus). A bird of the Passerine order, but an expert diver, frequenting running streams in mountainous countries.
DIPPING-LADLE. A metal ladle for taking boiling pitch from the cauldron.
DIPPING-NEEDLE. An instrument for ascertaining the amount of the[249] magnet's inclination towards the earth; it is so delicately suspended, that, instead of vibrating horizontally, one end dips or yields to the vertical force. This instrument has been so perfected by Mr. R. W.
Fox of Falmouth, that even at sea in the heaviest gales of wind the dip could instantly, by magnetic deflectors, be ascertained to minutes, far beyond what heretofore could be elicited from the most expensive instruments, observed over 365 days on shore.
DIPPING-NET. A small net used for taking shad and other fish out of the water.
DIPS. See Lead-line.
DIP-SECTOR. An ingenious instrument for measuring the true dip of the horizon, invented by Dr. Wollaston, and very important, not only where the nature and quantity of the atmospherical refraction are to be examined, but for ascertaining the rates of chronometers, and the exact latitude in those particular regions where accidental refractions are very great, for the difference between the calculated dip and that observed by the sector may exceed three minutes. It is a reflecting instrument, of small compass, but requiring patience and practice in its use.
DIPSY. The float of a fishing-line.
DIRECT-ACTING ENGINE. A steam engine in which the connecting rod is led at once from the head of the piston to the crank, thus communicating the rotatory motion without the intervention of side-levers.
DIRECT FIRE. One of the five varieties into which artillerists usually divide horizontal fire (which see).