SIZE, To. To range soldiers, marines, and small-arm men, so that the tallest may be on the flanks of a party.

SIZE-FISH. A whale, of which the whalebone blades are six feet or upwards in length; the harpooner gets a bonus for striking a "size-fish."

SIZES. A corruption for six-upon-four (which see).

SKARKALLA. An old machine for catching fish.

SKART. A name of the cormorant in the Hebrides.

SKATE. A well-known cartilaginous fish of the ray family, Raia batis.

SKATE-LURKER. A cant word for a begging impostor dressed as a sailor.

SKEDADDLE, To. To stray wilfully from a watering or a working party. An archaism retained by the Americans.

SKEDDAN. The Manx or Erse term for herrings.

SKEEL. A cylindrical wooden bucket. A large water-kid.

SKEER, or Scar. A place where cockles are gathered. (See Scar.)

SKEET. A long scoop used to wet the sides of the ship, to prevent their splitting by the heat of the sun. It is also employed in small vessels for wetting the sails, to render them more efficacious in light breezes; this in large ships is done by the fire engine.

SKEE-TACK. A northern name for the cuttle-fish.

SKEGG. A small and slender part of the keel of a ship, cut slanting, and left a little without the stern-post; not much used now, owing to its catching hawsers, and occasioning dead water. The after-part of the keel itself is also called the skegg.

SKEGG-SHORES. Stout pieces of plank put up endways under the skegg of the ship, to steady the after-part when in the act of being launched.

SKELDRYKE. An old term for a small passage-boat in the north.

SKELETON OF A REGIMENT. Its principal officers and staff.

SKELLY. The Leuciscus cephalus, or chub. In the northern lakes it is often called the fresh-water herring.

SKELP, To. To slap with the open hand: an old word, said to have been imported from Iceland:—

SKENE, or Skain. A crooked sword formerly used by the Irish.

SKENY. A northern term to express an insulated rock.

SKER, or Skerry. A flat insulated rock, but not subject to the overflowing of the sea: thus we have "the Skerries" in Wales, the Channel Islands, &c.

SKEW. Awry, oblique; as a skew bridge, skew angle, &c. Also, in Cornwall, drizzling rain. Also, a rude-fashioned boat.

SKEWER-PIECES. When the salt meat is cut up on board ship by the petty officers, the captain and lieutenants are permitted to select whole[629] pieces of 8 or 16 lbs. , for which they are charged 2 or 4 lbs. extra. The meat being then divided into messes, the remnants are cut into small pieces termed skewer-pieces, and being free from bone, are charged ad lib.

to those who take them.

SKID-BEAMS. Raised stanchions in men-of-war over the main-deck, parallel to the quarter-deck and forecastle beams, for stowing the boats and booms upon.

SKIDDY-COCK. A west-country term for the water-rail.

SKIDER. A northern term for the skate.

SKIDS. Massive fenders; they consist of long compassing pieces of timber, formed to answer the vertical curve of a ship's side, in order to preserve it when weighty bodies are hoisted in or lowered against it. They are mostly used in whalers. Boats are fitted with permanent fenders, to prevent chafing and fretting. Also, beams resting on blocks, on which small craft are built.

Also, pieces of plank put under a vessel's bottom, for launching her off when she has been hauled up or driven ashore.

SKIFF. A familiar term for any small boat; but in particular, one resembling a yawl, which is usually employed for passing rivers. Also, a sailing vessel, with fore-and-aft main-sail, jib fore-sail, and jib: differing from a sloop in setting the jib on a stay, which is eased in by travellers. They have no top-mast, and the main-sail hauls out to the taffrail, and traverses on a traveller iron horse like a cutter's fore-sail.

SKILLET. A small pitch-pot or boiler with feet.

SKILLY. Poor broth, served to prisoners in hulks. Oatmeal and water in which meat has been boiled. Hence, skillygalee, or burgoo, the drink made with oatmeal and sugar, and served to seamen in lieu of cocoa as late as 1814.

SKIN. This term is frequently used for the inside planking of a vessel, the outside being the case.

SKIN OF A SAIL. The outside part when a sail is furled. To furl in a clean skin, is the habit of a good seaman.—To skin up a sail in the bunt. To make that part of the canvas which covers the sail, next the mast when furled, smooth and neat, by turning the sail well up on the yard.

SKIP-JACK. A dandified trifling officer; an upstart. Also, the merry-thought of a fowl. Also, a small fish of the bonito kind, which frequently jumps out of the water. A name applied also to small porpoises.

SKIPPAGE. An archaism for tackle or ship furniture.

SKIPPER. The master of a merchant vessel. Also, a man-of-war's man's constant appellation for his own captain. Also, the gandanock, or saury-pike, Esox saurus.

SKIRLING. A fish taken on the Welsh coasts, and supposed to be the fry of salmon.

SKIRMISH. An engagement of a light and irregular character, generally for the purpose of gaining information or time, or of clearing the way for more serious operations.

SKIRTS. The extreme edges of a plain, forest, shoal, [630]&c.

SKIS-THURSDAY. "The Lady-day in Lent" of the Society of Shipwrights at Newcastle, instituted in 1630.

SKIT. An aspersive inuendo or for fun.

SKIVER. A dirk to stab with.

SKOODRA. A Shetland name for the ling.

SKOOL. The cry along the coast when the herrings appear first for the season: a corruption of school.

SKOORIE. A northern term for a full-grown coal-fish.

SKOTTEFER [Anglo-Sax. scot, an arrow or dart]. Formerly, an archer.

SKOUTHER. A northern name for the stinging jelly-fish.

SKOUTS. Guillemots or auks, so called in our northern islands from their wary habits.

SKOW. A flat-bottomed boat of the northern German rivers.

SKRAE-FISH. Fish dried in the sun without being salted.

SKUA. A kind of sea-gull.

SKUNK-HEAD. An American coast-name for the pied duck.

SKURRIE. The shag, Phalacrocorax graculus. Applied to frightened seals, &c.

SKY-GAZER. The ugly hare-lipped Uranoscopus, whose eyes are on the crown of its head; the Italians call him pesce-prete, or priest-fish. Also, a sail of very light duck, over which un-nameable sails have been set, which defy classification.

SKY-LARKING. In olden times meant mounting to the mast-heads, and sliding down the royal-stays or backstays for amusement; but of late the term has denoted frolicsome mischief, which is not confined to boys, unless three score and ten includes them.—Skying is an old word for shying or throwing.

SKYLIGHT. A framework in the deck to admit light vertically into the cabin and gun-room.

SKYSAIL. A small light sail above the royal.

SKYSAIL-MAST. The pole or upper portion of a royal mast, when long enough to serve for setting a skysail; otherwise a skysail-mast is a separate spar, as sliding gunter (which see).

SKY-SCRAPER. A triangular sail set above the skysail; if square it would be a moonsail, and if set above that, a star-gazer, &c.

SLAB. The outer cut of a tree when sawn up into planks. (Alburnum.)

SLAB-LINES. Small ropes passing up abaft a ship's main-sail or fore-sail, led through blocks attached to the trestle-trees, and thence transmitted, each in two branches, to the foot of the sail, where they are fastened. They are used to truss up the slack sail, after it has been "disarmed" by the leech and buntlines.

SLACK. The part of a rope or sail that hangs loose.—To slack, is to decrease in tension or velocity; as, "Slack the laniard of our main-stay;" or "The tide slackens."

SLACK HELM. If the ship is too much by the stern, she will carry her helm too much a-lee.[631]

SLACK IN STAYS. Slow in going about. Also applied to a lazy man.

SLACK OFF, or Slacken! The order to ease away the rope or tackle by which anything is held fast; as, "Slack up the hawser."

SLACK WATER. The interval between the flux and reflux of the tide, as between the last of the ebb and first of the flood, or vice versâ, during which the water remains apparently quiescent.

SLADE [the Anglo-Saxon slæd]. A valley or open tract of country.

SLAKE. An accumulation of mud or ooze in the bed of a river.

SLANT OF WIND. An air of which advantage may be taken.

SLANT TACK. That which is most favourable to the course when working to windward.

SLAVER. A vessel employed in the odious slave-trade.

SLED. The rough kind of sleigh in North America, used for carrying produce, too heavy for amusement.

SLEE. A sort of cradle placed under a ship's bottom in Holland, for drawing her up for repairs.

SLEECH. A word on our southern coasts for mud or sea-sand used in agriculture.

SLEEP. A sail sleeps when, steadily filled with wind, it bellies to the breeze.

SLEEPERS. Timbers lying fore and aft in the bottom of the ship, now generally applied to the knees which connect the transoms to the after timbers on the ship's quarter. They are particularly used in Greenland ships, to strengthen the bows and stern-frame, to enable them to resist the shocks of the ice. Also, any wooden beams used as supports. Also, ground tier casks.

SLEEVE. The word formerly used to denote the narrows of a channel, and particularly applied to the Strait of Dover, still called La Manche by the French. When Napoleon was threatening to invade England, he was represented trying to get into a coat, but one of the sleeves utterly baffled him, whence the point: "Il ne peut pas passer La Manche."

SLEEVE-FISH. A name for the calamary, Loligo vulgaris, an animal allied to the cuttle-fish.

SLICE. A bar of iron with a flat, sharp, spear-shaped end, used in stripping off sheathing, ceiling, and the like. The whaler's slice is a slender chisel about four inches wide, used to cut into, and flinch the fish.

SLICES. Tapering wedges of plank used to drive under the false keel, and between the bilge-ways, preparatory to launching a vessel.

SLICK. Smooth. This is usually called an Americanism, but is a very old sea-term. In the Book for Boys and Girls, 1686, it is aptly illustrated:

SLIDE-VALVE CASING. A casing on one side of the cylinder of an engine, which covers the nozzles or steam-ports, and confines the slide-valves.

SLIDE-VALVE ROD. A rod connecting the slide-valves of an engine,[632] to both of which it is joined; it passes through the casing cover, the opening of which is kept steam-tight.

SLIDE-VALVES. The adaptations used in a marine-engine to change the admission of the steam into, and its eduction from, the cylinder, by the upper and lower steam-ports alternately.

SLIDING BAULKS, or Sliding-planks. Those timbers fitted under the bottom of a ship, to descend with her upon the bilge-ways when launched.

SLIDING BILGE-BLOCKS. Those logs made to slide under the bilge of a ship in order to support her.

SLIDING GUNTERS. Masts fitted for getting up and down with facility abaft the mast; generally used for kites, as royals, skysails, and the like.

SLIDING-KEEL. A contrivance to prevent vessels from being driven to leeward by a side-wind; it is composed of planks of various breadths, erected vertically, so as to slide up and down, through the keel.

SLING, To. To pass the top-chains round the yards when going into action. Also, to set any large article, in ropes, so as to put a tackle on, and hoist or lower it. When the clues are attached to a cot or hammock, it is said to be slung; also water-kegs, buoys, &c., are slung.