KERMES. A little red gall, occasioned by the puncture of the Coccus ilicis on the leaves of the Quercus coccifera, or Kermes oak; an article of commerce from Spain, used in dyeing.

KERNEL. Corrupted from crenelle; the holes in a battlement made for the purpose of shooting arrows and small shot.

KERNES. Light-armed Irish foot soldiers of low degree, who cleared the way for the heavy gallow-glasses.

KERS. An Anglo-Saxon word for water-cresses.

KERT. An old spelling for chart.

KERVEL. See Carvel.

KETCH. A vessel of the galliot order, equipped with two masts—viz. the main and mizen masts—usually from 100 to 250 tons burden. Ketches were principally used as yachts for conveying great personages from one place to another. The peculiarity of this rig, affording so much space before the main-mast, and at the greatest beam, caused them to be used for mortar-vessels, hence—Bomb-ketches, which are built remarkably strong, with a greater number of riders than any other vessel of war, as requisite to sustain the violent shock produced by the discharge of their mortars.

(See Bomb-vessel, Mortar, and Shell.

KETERINS. Marauders who formerly infested the Irish coast and channel.

KETOS, or Cetus. An ancient ship of large dimensions.

KETTLE. The brass or metal box of a compass.

KETTLE-BOTTOM. A name applied to a ship with a flat floor.

KETTLE-NET. A net used in taking mackerel.

KETTLE OF FISH. To have made a pretty kettle of fish of it, implies a perplexity in judgment.

KEVEL-HEADS. The ends of the top timbers, which, rising above the gunwale, serve to belay the ropes, or to be used as kevels.

KEVELING. A coast name for the skate.

KEVELS, or Cavils. Large cleats, or also pieces of oak passing through a mortice in the rail, and answer the purpose of timber-heads for belaying ropes to.

KEY. In ship-building, means a dry piece of oak or elm, cut tapering, to drive into scarphs that have hook-butts, to wedge deck-planks, or to join any pieces of wood tightly to each other. Iron forelocks.

KEY, or Cay [derived from the Spanish cayos, rocks]. What in later years have been so termed will be found in the old Spanish charts as cayos. The term was introduced to us by the buccaneers as small insular spots with a scant vegetation; without the latter they are merely termed sand-banks. Key is especially used in the West Indies, and often applied to the smaller coral shoals produced by zoophytes.

KEY, or Quay. A long wharf, usually built of stone, by the side of a harbour, and having posts and rings, cranes, and store-houses, for the convenience of merchant ships.

KEYAGE, or Quayage. Money paid for landing goods at a key or quay. The same as wharfage.

KEYLE. (See Keel.) The vessel of that name.

KEY-MODEL. In ship-building, a model formed by pieces of board laid on each other horizontally. These boards, being all shaped from the lines on the paper, when put together and fairly adjusted, present the true form of the proposed ship.

KEY OF THE RUDDER. (See Wood-locks.) In machinery, applies to wedges, forelocks, &c.

KHALISHEES. Native Indian sailors.

KHAVIAR. See Caviare.

KHIZR. The patron deity of the sea in the East Indies, to whom small boats, called beera, are annually sacrificed on the shores and rivers.

KIBE. A flaw produced in the bore of a gun by a shot striking against it.

KIBLINGS. Parts of a small fish used for bait on the banks of Newfoundland.

KICK. The springing back of a musket when fired. Also, the violent recoil by which a carronade is often thrown off the slide of its carriage. A comparison of excellence or novelty; the very kick.

KICKSHAW. Applied to French cookery, or unsubstantial trifles.[422]

KICK THE BUCKET, To. To expire; an inconsiderate phrase for dying.

KICK UP A DUST, To. To create a row or disturbance.

KID. A presuming man. —Kiddy fellow, neat in his dress. Also, a compartment in some fishing-vessels, wherein the fish are thrown as they are caught. Also, a small wooden tub for grog, with two ears; or generally for a mess utensil of that kind.

(See Kit.

KIDDLES. Stakes whereby the free passage of boats and vessels is hindered. Also, temporary open weirs for catching fish.

KIDLEYWINK. A low beershop in our western ports.

KIDNAP, To. To crimp or carry off by artifice.

KIDNEY. Men of the same kidney, i.e. of a similar disposition.

KIFTIS. The large passage-boats of India, fitted with cabins on each side from stem to stern.

KIHAIA. An officer of Turkish ports in superintendence of customs, &c.; often deputy-governor.

KILDERKIN. A vessel containing the eighth part of a hogshead.

KILE. See Kyle.

KILL. A channel or stream, as Cats-kill, Schuylkill, &c.

KILL-DEVIL. New rum, from its pernicious effects.

KILLER. A name for the grampus, Orca gladiator, given on account of the ferocity with which it attacks and destroys whales, seals, and other marine animals. (See Grampus.)

KILLESE. The groove in a cross-bow.

KILLING-OFF. Striking the names of dead officers from the navy list by a coup de plume.

KILLOCK. A small anchor. Flue of an anchor. (See Kellagh.)

KILLY-LEEPIE. A name on our northern shores for the Tringa hypoleucos or common sand-piper.

KILN. The dockyard building wherein planks are steamed for the purpose of bending them to round the extremities of a ship.

KIN. See Kinn.

KING ARTHUR. A game played on board ship in warm climates, in which a person, grotesquely personating King Arthur, is drenched with buckets of water until he can, by making one of his persecutors smile or laugh, change places with him.

KING-CRAB. The Limulus polyphemus of the West Indies.

KING-FISH. The Zeus luna. Carteret took one at Masafuero 51⁄2 feet long, and weighing 87 lbs. Also, the Scomber maximus of the West Indies.

KING-FISHER. The Alcedo ispida; a small bird of brilliant plumage frequenting rivers and brooks, and feeding upon fish, which it catches with great dexterity. (See Halcyon.)

KING JOHN'S MEN. The Adullamites of the navy.

KING'S BARGAIN: Good or Bad; said of a seaman according to his activity and merit, or sloth and demerit.[423]

KING'S BENCHER. The busiest of the galley orators: also galley-skulkers.

KING'S HARD BARGAIN. A useless fellow, who is not worth his hire.

KING'S LETTER MEN. An extinct class of officers, of similar rank with midshipmen. The royal letter was a kind of promise that if they conducted themselves well, they should be promoted to the rank of lieutenant.

KING'S OWN. All the articles supplied from the royal magazines, and marked with the broad arrow. Salt beef or junk.

KING'S PARADE. A name given to the quarter-deck of a man-of-war, which is customarily saluted by touching the hat when stepping on it.

KINK. An accidental curling, twist, or doubling turn in a cable or rope, occasioned by its being very stiff, or close laid, or by being drawn too hastily out of the coil or tier in which it was coiled. (See Coiling.)—To kink. To twist.

KINKLINGS. A coast name for periwinkles.

KINN. From the Gaelic word for head; meaning, in local names, a hill or promontory.

KINTLE. A dozen of anything. Remotely corrupted from quintal.

KINTLIDGE. A term for iron-ballast. (See Kentledge.)

KIOCK, or Blue-back. An alosa fish, used by the American and other fishermen as a bait for mackerel.

KIOSK. A pavilion on the poop of some Turkish vessels.

KIPLIN. The more perishable parts of the cod-fish, cured separately from the body.

KIPPAGE. An old term for equipage, or ship's company.

KIPPER. Salmon in the act of spawning; also, the male fish, and especially beaked fish. Kipper is also applied to salmon which has undergone the process of kippering (which see).

KIPPERING. A method of curing fish in which salt is little used, but mainly sugar, pepper, and drying in the sun, and occasionally some smoke. Salmon thus treated is considered a dainty, though the cure is far less lasting than with salt.

KIPPER-TIME. The time during which the statutes prohibit the taking of salmon.

KISMISSES. The raisins issued in India, resembling the sultanas of the Levant. The word is derived from the Turkish. They seldom have seeds.

KIST. A word still in use in the north for chest.

KIT. A small wooden pail or bucket, wherewith boats are baled out; generally with an ear. (See Kid.) Also, a contemptuous term for total; as, the whole kit of them.

KITT, or Kit. An officer's outfit. Also, a term among soldiers and marines to express the complement of regimental necessaries, which they are obliged to keep in repair. Also, a seaman's wardrobe.

KITTIWAKE. A species of gull of the northern seas; so called from its peculiar cry: the Larus tridactylus.

KITTY-WITCH. A small kind of crab on the east coast.[424]

KLEG. The fish Gadus barbatus.

KLEPTES. The pirates of the Archipelago; literally the Greek for robbers.

KLICK-HOOKS. Large hooks for catching salmon in the daytime.

KLINKER. A flat-bottomed lighter or praam of Sweden and Denmark.

KLINKETS. Small grating-gates, made through palisades for sallies.

KLIPPEN. The German for cliffs; in use in the Baltic.—Blinde Klippen, reefs of rocks under water.

KLOSH. Seamen of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden.

KNAGGY. Crotchety; sour-tempered.

KNAGS. Points of rocks. Also, hard knots in wood.

KNAP [from the Anglo-Saxon cnæp, a protuberance]. The top of a hill. Also, a blow or correction, as "you'll knap it," for some misdeed.

KNAPSACK. A light water-proof case fitted to the back, in which the foot-soldier carries his necessaries on a march.

KNARRS. Knots in spars. (See Gnarre.)

KNECK. The twisting of rope or cable as it is veering out.

KNEE. Naturally grown timber, or bars of iron, bent to a right angle, or to fit the surfaces, and to secure bodies firmly together, as hanging-knees secure the deck-beams to the sides. They are divided into hanging-knees, diagonal hanging-knees, lodging-knees or deck-beam knees, transom-knees, helm-post transom-knees, wing transom-knees (which see).

KNEE OF THE HEAD. A large flat piece of timber, fixed edgeways, and fayed upon the fore-part of a ship's stem, supporting the ornamental figure. (See Head. ) Besides which, this piece is otherwise useful as serving to secure the boom or bumkin, by which the fore-tack is extended to windward, and by its great breadth preventing the ship from falling to leeward, when close-hauled, so much as she would otherwise be liable to do. It also affords security to the bowsprit by increasing the angle of the bobstay, so as to make it act more perpendicularly on the bowsprit.

The knee of the head is a phrase peculiar to shipwrights; by seamen it is called the cut-water (which see).

KNEES. Dagger-knees are those which are fixed rather obliquely to avoid an adjacent gun-port, or where, from the vicinity of the next beam, there is not space for the arms of two lodging-knees.—Lodging-knees are fixed horizontally in the ship's frame, having one arm bolted to the beam, and the other across two or three of the timbers.—Standard-knees are those which, being upon a deck, have one arm bolted down to it, and the other pointing upwards secured to the ship's side; such also, are the bits and channels.

KNEE-TIMBER. That sort of crooked timber which forms at its back or elbow an angle of from 24° to 45°; but the more acute this angle is, the more valuable is the timber on that account. Used for knees, rising floors, and crutches. Same as raking-knees.

KNETTAR. A string used to tie the mouth of a sack.

KNIFE. An old name for a dagger: thus Lady Macbeth—