GREEN SEA. A large body of water shipped on a vessel's deck; it derives its name from the green colour of a sheet of water between the eye and the light when its mass is too large to be broken up into spray.

GREEN-SLAKE. The sea-weed otherwise called lettuce-laver (which see).[349]

GREEN TURTLE. The common name for the edible turtle, which does not yield tortoise-shell.

GREENWICH STARS. Those used for lunar computations in the nautical ephemeris.

GREEP. The old orthography of gripe.

GREGO. A coarse Levantine jacket, with a hood. A cant term for a rough great-coat.

GRENADE. Now restricted to hand-grenade, weighing about 2 lbs., and the fuze being previously lit, is conveniently thrown by hand from the tops of ships on to an enemy's deck, from the parapet into the ditch, or generally against an enemy otherwise difficult to reach. A number of grenades, moreover, being quilted together with their fuzes outwards, called a "bouquet," is fired short distances with good effect from mortars in the latter stages of a siege.

GRENADIERS. Formerly the right company of each battalion, composed of the largest men, and originally equipped for using hand-grenades. Now-a-days the companies of a regiment are equalized in size and other matters; and the title in the British army remains only to the fine regiment of grenadier guards.

GRENADO. The old name for a live shell. Thuanus says that they were first used at the siege of Wacklindonck, near Gueldres; and that their inventor, in an experiment in Venice, occasioned the burning of two-thirds of that city.

GREVE. A low flat sandy shore; whence graving is derived.

GREY-FRIARS. A name given to the oxen of Tuscany, with which the Mediterranean fleet was supplied.

GREY-HEAD. A fish of the haddock kind, taken on the coast of Galloway.

GREYHOUND. A hammock with so little bedding as to be unfit for stowing in the nettings.

GRIAN. A Gaelic term for the bottom, whether of river, lake, or sea.

GRIBAN. A small two-masted vessel of Normandy.

GRID. The diminutive of gridiron.

GRIDIRON. A solid timber stage or frame, formed of cross-beams of wood, for receiving a ship with a falling tide, in order that her bottom may be examined. The Americans also use for a similar purpose an apparatus called a screw-dock, and another known as the hydraulic-dock.

GRIFFIN, or Griff. A name given to Europeans during the first year of their arrival in India; it has become a general term for an inexperienced youngster.

GRIG. Small eels.

GRILL, To. To broil on the bars of the galley-range, as implied by its French derivation.

GRILSE. One of the salmon tribe, generally considered to be a young salmon on the return from its first sojourn at the sea; though by some still supposed to be a distinct fish.[350]

GRIN AND BEAR IT. The stoical resignation to unavoidable hardship, which, being heard on board ship by Lord Byron, produced the fine stanza in "Childe Harold," commencing "Existence might be borne."

GRIND. A half kink in a hempen cable.

GRIP. The Anglo-Saxon grep. The handle of a sword; also a small ditch or drain. To hold, as "the anchor grips." Also, a peculiar groove in rifled ordnance.

GRIPE. Is generally formed by the scarph of the stem and keel. (See Fore-foot. ) This is retained, or shaved away, according to the object of making the vessel hold a better wind, or have greater facility in wearing. —To gripe.

To carry too much weather-helm. A vessel gripes when she tends to come up into the wind while sailing close-hauled. She gripes according to her trim. If it continues it is remedied by lightening forward, or making her draw deeper aft.

GRIPED-TO. The situation of a boat when secured by gripes.

GRIPES. A broad plait formed by an assemblage of ropes, woven and fitted with thimbles and laniards, used to steady the boats upon the deck of a ship at sea. The gripes are fastened at their ends to ring-bolts in the deck, on each side of the boat; whence, passing over her middle and extremities, they are set up by means of the laniards. Gripes for a quarter boat are similarly used.

GRITT. An east-country term for the sea-crab.

GROATS. An allowance for each man per mensem, assigned formerly to the chaplain for pay.

GROBMAN. A west-country term for a sea-bream about two-thirds grown.

GRODAN. A peculiar boat of the Orcades; also the Erse for a gurnard.

GROG. A drink issued in the navy, consisting of one part of spirits diluted with three of water; introduced in 1740 by Admiral Vernon, as a check to intoxication by mere rum, and said to have been named from his grogram coat. Pindar, however, alludes to the Cyclops diluting their beverage with ten waters. As the water on board, in olden times, became very unwholesome, it was necessary to mix it with spirits, but iron tanks have partly remedied this. The addition of sugar and lemon-juice now makes grog an agreeable anti-scorbutic.

GROG-BLOSSOM. A red confluence on the nose and face of an excessive drinker of ardent spirits; though sometimes resulting from other causes.

GROG-GROG. The soft cry of the solan goose.

GROGGY, or Groggified. Rendered stupid by drinking, or incapable of performing duty by illness; as also a ship when crank, and birds when crippled.

GROGRAM. From gros-grain. A coarse stuff of which boat-cloaks were made. From one which Admiral Vernon wore, came the term grog.

GROINING. A peculiar mode of submarine embankment; a quay run out transversely to the shore.

GROMAL. An old word for gromet, or apprentice.[351]

GROMET. A boy of the crew of the ships formerly furnished by the Cinque Ports (a diminutive from the Teutonic grom, a youth); his duty was to keep ship in harbour. Now applied to the ship's apprentices.

GROMMET, or Grummet. A ring formed of a single strand of rope, laid in three times round; used to fasten the upper edge of a sail to its stay in different places, and by means of which the sail is hoisted or lowered. Iron or wooden hanks have now been substituted. (See Hanks.) Grommets are also used with pins for large boats' oars, instead of rowlocks, and for many other purposes.

GROMMET-WAD. A ring made of 11⁄2 or 2 inch rope, having attached to it two cross-pieces or diameters of the same material; it acts by the ends of these pieces biting on the interior of the bore of the gun.

GROOVE-ROLLERS. These are fixed in a groove of the tiller-sweep in large ships, to aid the tiller-ropes, and prevent friction.

GROPERS. The ships stationed in the Channel and North Sea.

GROPING. An old mode of catching trout by tickling them with the hands under rocks or banks. Shakspeare makes the clown in "Measure for Measure" say that Claudio's offence was—

GROSETTA. A minute coin of Ragusa, somewhat less than a farthing.

GROUND, To. To take the bottom or shore; to be run aground through ignorance, violence, or accident.—To strike ground. To obtain soundings.

GROUNDAGE. A local duty charged on vessels coming to anchor in a port or standing in a roadstead, as anchorage.

GROUND-BAIT, or Groundling. A loach or loche.

GROUND-GRU. See Anchor-ice.

GROUND-GUDGEON. A little fish, the Cobitis barbatula.

GROUND-ICE. See Anchor-ice.

GROUNDING. The act of laying a ship on shore, in order to bream or repair her; it is also applied to runnings aground accidentally when under sail.

GROUND-PLOT. See Ichnography.

GROUND-SEA. The West Indian name for the swell called rollers, or in Jamaica the north sea. It occurs in a calm, and with no other indication of a previous gale; the sea rises in huge billows, dashes against the shore with roarings resembling thunder, probably due to the "northers," which suddenly rage off the capes of Virginia, round to the Gulf of Mexico, and drive off the sea from America, affecting the Bahama Banks, but not reaching to Jamaica or Cuba. The rollers set in terrifically in the Gulf of California, causing vessels to founder or strike in 7 fathoms, and devastating the coast-line. H.

M. S. Lily foundered off Tristan d'Acunha in similar weather. In all the latter cases no satisfactory cause is yet assigned. (See Roller.

GROUND-STRAKE. A name sometimes used for garboard-strake.

GROUND-SWELL. A sudden swell preceding a gale, which rises along[352] shore, often in fine weather, and when the sea beyond it is calm. (See Roller.)

GROUND-TACKLE. A general name given to all sorts of ropes and furniture which belong to the anchors, or which are employed in securing a ship in a road or harbour.

GROUND-TIER. The lowest water-casks in the hold before the introduction of iron tanks. It also implies anything else stowed there.

GROUND-TIMBERS. Those which lie on the keel, and are fastened to it with bolts through the kelson.

GROUND-WAYS. The large blocks and thick planks which support the cradle on which a ship is launched. Also, the foundation whereon a vessel is built.

GROUP. A set of islands not ranged in a row so as to form a chain, and the word is often used synonymously with cluster.

GROUPER. A variety of the snapper, which forms a staple article of food in the Bermudas, and in the West Indies generally.

GROWEN. See Grown-sea.

GROWING. Implies the direction of the cable from the ship towards the anchors; as, the cable grows on the starboard-bow, i.e. stretches out forwards towards the starboard or right side.

GROWING PAY. That which succeeds the dead-horse, or pay in prospect.

GROWLERS. Smart, but sometimes all-jaw seamen, who have seen some service, but indulge in invectives against restrictive regulations, rendering them undesirable men. There are also too many "civil growlers" of the same kidney.

GROWN-SEA. When the waves have felt the full influence of a gale.

GRUANE. The Erse term for the gills of a fish.

GRUB. A coarse but common term for provisions in general—

GRUB-TRAP. A vulgarism for the mouth.

GRUFF-GOODS. An Indian return cargo consisting of raw materials—cotton, rice, pepper, sugar, hemp, saltpetre, &c.

GRUMBLER. A discontented yet often hard-working seaman. Also, the gurnard, a fish of the blenny kind, which makes a rumbling noise when struggling to disengage itself on reaching the surface.

GRUMMET. See Grommet.

GRUNTER. A name of the Pogonias of Cuvier (a fish also termed the banded drum and young sheepskin); and several other fish.

GRYPHON. An archaic term for the meteorological phenomenon now called typhoon. (See Typhoon.)

[353]GUANO. The excrement of sea-birds, a valuable manure found in thick beds on certain islets on the coast of Peru, indeed, in all tropical climates. The transport of it occupies a number of vessels, called guaneros. It is of a dingy yellow colour, and offensive ammoniacal effluvium. Captain Shelvocke mentions it in 1720, having taken a small bark laden with it.

GUARA. The singular and ingenious rudder by which the rafts or balzas of Peru are enabled to work to windward. It consists of long boards between the beams, which are raised or sunk according to the required evolution. A device not unlike the sliding-keels or centre-boards lately introduced.

GUARANTEE. An undertaking to secure the performance of articles stipulated between any two parties. Also, the individual who so undertakes.

GUARD. The duty performed by a body of men stationed to watch and protect any post against surprise. A division of marines appointed to take the duty for a stated portion of time. "Guard, turn out! " the order to the marines on the captain's approaching the ship.

Also, the bow of a trigger and the hilt of a sword.

GUARDA-COSTA. Vessels of war of various sizes which formerly cruised against smugglers on the South American coasts.

GUARD-BOARDS. Synonymous with chain-wales.