DORADO. The Coryphæna hippuris, an oceanic fish; often called "dolphin."

DOREY. A flat-floored cargo-boat in the West Indies, named after the fish John Dory.

DORNICLE. A northern name for the viviparous blenny.

DORRA. From the Gaelic dorga; a crab-net.

DORSAL FIN. The median fin placed upon the back of fishes.

DORY. A fish, Zeus faber, commonly known as "John Dory," or truly jaune dorée, from its golden hues.

DOTTLE. The small portion of tobacco remaining unsmoked in the pipe.

DOUBLE, To. To cover a ship with an extra planking, usually of 4 inches, either internally or externally, when through age or otherwise she has become loosened; the process strengthens her without driving out the former fastenings. Doubling, however, is a term applied only where the plank thus used is not less than 2 inches thick.—To double a cape. (See Doubling a Cape.)

DOUBLE-ACTING ENGINE. One in which the steam acts upon the piston against a vacuum, both in the upward and downward movement.

DOUBLE-BANK A ROPE, To. To clap men on both sides.

DOUBLE-BANKED. When two opposite oars are pulled by rowers seated on the same thwart; or when there are two men labouring upon each oar. Also, 60-gun frigates which carry guns along the gangway, as was the custom with Indiamen, are usually styled double-bankers.

DOUBLE-BITTED. Two turns of the cable round the bitts instead of one.

DOUBLE-BLOCK. One fitted with a couple of sheaves, in holes side by side.

DOUBLE-BREECHING. Additional breeching on the non-recoil system, or security for guns in heavy weather.

DOUBLE-CAPSTAN. One shaft so constructed as to be worked both on an upper and lower deck, as in ships of the line, or in Phillips' patent capstan.

DOUBLE-CROWN. A name given to a plait made with the strands of a rope, which forms part of several useful and ornamental knots.

DOUBLE DECK-NAILS. See Deck-nails.

DOUBLE DUTCH coiled against the Sun. Gibberish, or any unintelligible or difficult language.

DOUBLE EAGLE. A gold coin of the United States, of 10 dollars; value £2, 1s. 8d., at the average rate of exchange.

DOUBLE-FUTTOCKS. Timbers in the cant-bodies, extending from the dead-wood to the run of the second futtock-head.

DOUBLE-HEADED MAUL. One with double faces; top-mauls in contradistinction to pin-mauls.

DOUBLE-HEADED SHOT. Differing from bar-shot by being similar to dumb-bells, only the shot are hemispherical.[259]

DOUBLE-IMAGE MICROMETER. Has one of its lenses divided, and separable to a certain distance by a screw, which at the same time moves an index upon a graduated scale. When fitted to a telescope for sea use, as in chase, it is called a coming-up glass.

DOUBLE INSURANCE. Where the insured makes two insurances on the same risks and the same interest.

DOUBLE-IRONED. Both legs shackled to the bilboe-bolts.

DOUBLE-JACK. See Jack-screw.

DOUBLE-LAND. That appearance of a coast when the sea-line is bounded by parallel ranges of hills, rising inland one above the other.

DOUBLE-SIDED. A line-of-battle ship painted so as to show the ports of both decks; or a vessel painted to resemble one, as used to be frequent in the Indian marine.

DOUBLE-STAR. Two stars so close together as to be separable only with a telescope. They are either optically so owing to their accidental situation in the heavens, or physically near each other in space, and one of them revolving round the other.

DOUBLE-TIDE. Working double-tides is doing extra duty. (See Work Double-tides.)

DOUBLE UPON, To. See Doubling upon.

DOUBLE WALL-KNOT. With or without a crown, or a double crown, is made by intertwisting the unlaid ends of a rope in a peculiar manner.

DOUBLE-WHIP. A whip is simply a rope rove through a single block; a double whip is when it passes through a lower tail or hook-block, and the standing end is secured to the upper block, or where it is attached.

DOUBLING. (See Rank.) Putting two ranks into one.

DOUBLING A CAPE. In navigation, is to sail round or pass beyond it, so that the point of land separates the ship from her former situation.

DOUBLING-NAILS. The nails commonly used in doubling.

DOUBLING UPON. In a naval engagement, the act of inclosing any part of a hostile fleet between two fires, as Nelson did at the Nile. The van or rear of one fleet, taking advantage of the wind or other circumstances, runs round the van or rear of the enemy, who will thereby be exposed to great danger and confusion.

DOUBLOON. A Spanish gold coin, value 16 dollars: £3, 3s. to £3, 6s. English.

DOUGH-BOYS. Hard dumplings boiled in salt water. A corruption of dough-balls.

DOUSE, To. To lower or slacken down suddenly; expressed of a sail in a squall of wind, an extended hawser, &c. Douse the glim, your colours, &c., to knock down.

DOUT, To. To put out a light; to extinguish; do out. Shakspeare makes the dauphin of France say in "King Henry V.:"—

DOUTER, or Douser. An extinguisher.[260]

D'OUTRE MER. From beyond the sea.

DOVER COURT BEETLE. A heavy mallet. There is an old proverb: "A Dover court; all speakers and no hearers."

DOVE-TAIL. The fastening or letting in of one timber into another by a dove-tailed end and score, so that they hold firmly together, and cannot come asunder endwise. The operation of cutting the mortise is called dove-tailing.

DOVE-TAIL PLATES. Metal plates resembling dove-tails in form, let into the heel of the stern-post and the keel, to bind them together; and also those used for connecting the stem-foot with the fore end of the keel.

DOWAL. A coak of metal in a sheave.

DOWBREK. A northern term for the fish also called spärling or smelt.

DOWEL. A cylindrical piece of hard wood about three inches in diameter, and the same in length, used as an additional security in scarphing two pieces of timber together. Dowels are also used to secure the joinings of the felloes, or circumferential parts of wheels; and by coopers in joining together the contiguous boards forming the heads of casks.—Dowel, or dowel-bit, is the tool used to cut the holes for the dowels.

DOWELLING. The method of uniting the butts of the frame-timbers together with a cylindrical piece or tenon let in at each end.

DOWN ALL CHESTS! The order to get all the officers' and seamen's chests down below from off the gun-decks when clearing the ship for an engagement.

DOWN ALL HAMMOCKS! The order for all the sailors to carry their hammocks down, and hang them up in their respective berths in readiness to go to bed, or to lessen top-weight and resistance to wind in chase.

DOWN ALONG. Sailing coastways down Channel.

DOWN EAST. Far away in that bearing. This term, as down west, &c., is an Americanism, recently adopted into our vernacular.

DOWNFALLS. The descending waters of rivers and creeks.

DOWN-HAUL. A rope passing up along a stay, leading through cringles of the staysails or jib, and made fast to the upper corner of the sail to pull it down when shortening sail. Also, through blocks on the outer clues to the outer yard-arms of studding-sails, to take them in securely. Also, the cockpit term for a great-coat.

DOWN-HAUL TACKLES. Employed when lower yards are struck in bad weather to prevent them from swaying about after the trusses are unrove.

DOWN IN THE MOUTH. Low-spirited or disheartened.

DOWN KILLOCK! Let go the grapnel; the corruption of keel-hook or anchor.

DOWN OARS! The order on shoving off a boat when the men have had them "tossed up."

DOWNS. An accumulation of drifted sand, which the sea gathers along[261] its shores. The name is also applied to the anchorage or sea-space between the eastern coast of Kent and the Goodwin Sands, the well-known roadstead for ships, stretching from the South to the North Foreland, where both outward and homeward-bound ships frequently make some stay, and squadrons of men-of-war rendezvous in time of war. It is defended by the castles of Sandwich, Deal, and Dover.

DOWN WIND, DOWN SEA. A proverbial expression among seamen between the tropics, where the sea is soon raised by the wind, and when that abates is soon smooth again.

DOWN WITH THE HELM! An order to put the helm a-lee.

DOWSING CHOCK. A breast-hook or piece fayed athwart the apron and lapped on the knight-heads, or inside stuff, above the upper deck; otherwise termed hawse-hook.

DOYLT. Lazy or stupid.

DO YOU HEAR THERE? An inquiry following an order, but very often needlessly.

DRABLER. A piece of canvas laced on the bonnet of a sail to give it more drop, or as Captain Boteler says—"As the bonnet is to the course, so in all respects is the drabler to the bonnet." It is only used when both course and bonnet are not deep enough to clothe the mast.

DRACHMA. A Greek coin, value sevenpence three farthings sterling; 14 cents. American or Spanish real.

DRAFT, or Draught. A small allowance for waste on goods sold by weight.

DRAFT OF HANDS. A certain number of men appointed to serve on board a particular man-of-war, who are then said to be drafted. A transfer of hands from one ship to complete the complement of another.

DRAG. A machine consisting of a sharp square frame of iron encircled with a net, and commonly used to rake the mud off from the platform or bottom of the docks, or to clean rivers, or for dragging on the bottom for anything lost. Also, a creeper.

DRAG FOR THE ANCHOR, To. The same as creep or sweep.

DRAGGING. An old word for dredging.

DRAGGING ON HER. Said of a vessel in chase, or rounding a point, when she is obliged to carry more canvas to a fresh wind than she otherwise would.

DRAG-NET. A trawl or net to draw on the bottom for flat-fish.

DRAGOMAN. The name for a Turkish interpreter; it is corrupted from tarij-mân.

DRAGON. An old name for a musketoon.

DRAGON BEAM or Piece. A strut or abutment.

DRAGONET. A sea-fish, the gowdie, or Callionymus lyra.

DRAGON-VOLANT. The old name for a gun of large calibre used in the French navy, whence the term was adopted into ours.

DRAGOON. Originally a soldier trained to serve alike on horse or foot, or as Dr. Johnson equivocally explains it, "who fights indifferently on[262] foot or on horseback." (See Troop.) The term is now applied to all cavalry soldiers who have no other special designation.

DRAG-ROPES. Those used in the artillery by the men in pulling the gun backwards and forwards in practice and in action.

DRAGS. Whatever hangs over the ship into the sea, as shirts, coats, or the like; and boats when towed, or whatever else that after this manner may hinder the ship's way when she sails, are called drags.

DRAG-SAIL. Any sail with its clues stopped so as when veered away over the quarter to make a stop-water when veering in emergency. The drag-sail formed by the sprit-sail course was frequently used in former wars to retard the ship apparently running away until the enemy got within gun-shot.

DRAG-SAW. A cross-cut saw.

DRAG THE ANCHOR, To. The act of the anchors coming home.

DRAKE. An early piece of brass ordnance.

DRAKKAR. A Norman pirate boat of former times.

DRAUGHT, or Draft. The depth of water a ship displaces, or of a body of fluid necessary to float a vessel; hence a ship is said to draw so many feet of water when she requires that depth to float her, which, to be more readily known, are marked on the stem and stern-post from the keel upwards. Also, the old name for a chart. Also, the delineation of a ship designed to be built, drawn on a given scale, generally a quarter-inch to the foot, for the builders. (See Sheer-draught.)

DRAUGHT-HOOKS. Iron hooks fixed on the cheeks of a gun-carriage for dragging the gun along by draught-ropes.

DRAUGHTSMAN. The artist who draws plans or charts from instructions or surveys.