GIMBALS. The two concentric brass rings, having their axles at right angles, by which a sea-compass is suspended in its box, so as to counteract the effect of the ship's motion. (See Compass.) Also used for the chronometers.

GIMBLETING. The action of turning the anchor round on its fluke, so that the motion of the stock appears similar to that of the handle of a gimlet when it is employed to bore a hole. To turn anything round on its end.

GIMLET-EYE. A penetrating gaze, which sees through a deal plank.

GIMMART. See Gymmyrt.

GIMMEL. Any disposition of rings, as links, device of machinery. (See Gimbals.)[340]

GIN. A small iron cruciform frame, having a swivel-hook, furnished with an iron sheave, to serve as a pulley for the use of chain in discharging cargo and other purposes.

GINGADO. See Jergado.

GINGAL. A long barrelled fire-arm, throwing a ball of from 1⁄4 to 1⁄2 lb., used throughout the East, especially in China; made to load at the breach with a movable chamber. (See also Jingal.)

GINGERBREAD-HATCHES. Luxurious quarters—

GINGERBREAD WORK. Profusely carved decorations of a ship.

GINGERLY. Spruce and smart, but somewhat affected in movement.

GINNELIN. Catching fish by the hand; tickling them.

GINNERS, or Ginnles. The gills of fish.

GINSENG. A Chinese root, formerly highly prized for its restorative virtues, and greatly valued among the items of a cargo. It is now almost out of the Materia Medica.

GIP, To. To take the entrails out of fishes.

GIRANDOLE. Any whirling fire-work.

GIRD, To. To bind; used formerly for striking a blow.

GIRDLE. An additional planking over the wales or bends. Also, a frapping for girding a ship.

GIRT. The situation of a ship which is moored so taut by her cables, extending from the hawse to two distant anchors, as to be prevented from swinging to the wind or tide. The ship thus circumstanced endeavours to swing, but her side bears upon one of the cables, which catches on her heel, and interrupts her in the act of traversing. In this position she must ride with her broadside or stern to the wind or current, till one or both of the cables are slackened, so as to sink under the keel; after which the ship will readily yield to the effort of the wind or current, and turn her head thither. (See Ride.)

GIRT-LINE. A whip purchase, consisting of a rope passing through a single block on the head of a lower mast to hoist up the rigging thereof, and the persons employed to place it; the girt-line is therefore the first rope employed to rig a ship. (Sometimes mis-called gant-line.)

GISARMS. An archaic term for a halbert or hand-axe.

GIVE A SPELL. To intermit or relieve work. (See Spell.)

GIVE CHASE, To. To make sail in pursuit of a stranger.

GIVE HER SO AND SO. The direction of the officer of the watch to the midshipman, reporting the rate of sailing by the log, and which requires correction in the judgment of that officer, from winds, &c., before marking on the log-board.

GIVE HER SHEET. The order to ease off; give her rope.

GIVE WAY. The order to a boat's crew to renew rowing, or to increase their exertions if they were already rowing. To hang on the oars.

GIVE WAY TOGETHER. So that the oars may all dip and rise together, whereby the force is concentrated.[341]

GIVE WAY WITH A WILL. Pull heartily together.

GIVING. The surging of a seizing; new rope stretching to the strain.

GLACIS. In fortification, that smooth earthen slope outside the ditch which descends to the country, affording a secure parapet to the covered way, and exposing always a convenient surface to the fire of the place.

GLADENE. A very early designation of the sea-onion.

GLAIRE. A broadsword or falchion fixed on a pike.

GLANCE. (See Northern-glance.) Also, a name for anthracite coal.

GLASAG. The Gaelic name of an edible sea-weed of our northern isles.

GLASS. The usual appellation for a telescope (see the old sea song of Lord Howard's capture of Barton the pirate). Also, the familiar term for a barometer. Glass is also used in the plural to denote time-glass on the duration of any action; as, they fought yard-arm and yard-arm three glasses, i. e.

three half-hours. —To flog or sweat the half-hour glass. To turn the sand-glass before the sand has quite run out, and thus gaining a few minutes in each half-hour, make the watch too short. —Half-minute and quarter-minute glasses, used to ascertain the rate of the ship's velocity measured by the log; they should be occasionally compared with a good stop watch. —Night-glass.

A telescope adapted for viewing objects at night.

GLASS CLEAR? Is the sand out of the upper part? asked previously to turning it, on throwing the log.

GLASSOK. A coast name for the say, seath, or coal-fish.

GLAVE. A light hand-dart. Also, a sword-blade fixed on the end of a pole.

GLAYMORE. A two-handed sword. (See Claymore.)

GLAZED POWDER. Gunpowder of which the grains, by friction against one another in a barrel worked for the purpose, have acquired a fine polish, sometimes promoted by a minute application of black-lead; reputed to be very slightly weaker than the original, and somewhat less liable to deterioration.

GLEN. An Anglo-Saxon term denoting a dale or deep valley; still in use for a ravine.

GLENT, To. To turn aside or quit the original direction, as a shot does from accidentally impinging on a hard substance.

GLIB-GABBET. Smooth and ready speech.

GLIM. A light; familiarly used for the eyes.—Dowse the glim, put out the light.

GLOAMING. The twilight. Also, a gloomy dull state of sky.

GLOBE RANGERS. A soubriquet for the royal marines.

GLOBULAR SAILING. A general designation for all the methods on which the rules of computation are founded, on the hypothesis that the earth is a sphere; including great circle sailing.

GLOG. The Manx or Erse term which denotes the swell or rolling of the sea after a storm.

GLOOM-STOVE. Formerly for drying powder, at a temperature of about[342] 140°; being an iron vessel in a room heated from outside, but steam-pipes are now substituted.

GLOOT. See Galoot.

GLOWER, To. To stare or look intently.

GLUE. See Marine Glue.

GLUM. As applied to the weather, overcast and gloomy. Socially, it is a grievous look.

GLUT. A piece of wood applied as a fulcrum to a lever power. Also, a bit of canvas sewed into the centre of a sail near the head, with an eyelet-hole in the middle for the bunt-jigger or becket to go through. Glut used to prevent slipping, as sand and nippers glut the messenger; the fall of a tackle drawn across the sheaves, by which it is choked or glutted; junks of rope interposed between the messenger and the whelps of the capstan.

GLYN. A deep valley with convex sides. (See Cwm.)

GNARLED. Knotty; said of timber.

GNARRE. An old term for a hard knot in a tree; hence Shakspeare's "unwedgeable and gnarled oak."

GNOLL. A round hillock. (See Knoll.)

GNOMON. The hand; style of a dial.

GO! A word sometimes given when all is ready for the launch of a vessel from the stocks.

GO AHEAD! or Go on! The order to the engineer in a steamer.

GO ASHORE, To. To land on leave.

GO ASHORES. The seamen's best dress.

GOBARTO. A large and ravenous fish of our early voyagers, probably a shark.

GOBBAG. A Gaelic name for the dog-fish.

GOB-DOO. A Manx term for a mussel.

GOBISSON. Gambesson; quilted dress worn under the habergeon.

GOBLACHAN. A Gaelic name for the parr or samlet.

GOB-LINE. See Gaub-line.

GOBON. An old English name for the whiting.

GOB-STICK. A horn or wooden spoon.

GO BY. Stratagem.—To give her the go by, is to escape by deceiving.

GOBY. A name of the gudgeon (which see). It was erroneously applied to white-bait.

GOD. We retain the Anglo-Saxon word to designate the Almighty; signifying good, to do good, doing good, and to benefit; terms such as our classic borrowings cannot pretend to.

GODENDA. An offensive weapon of our early times, being a poleaxe with a spike at its end.

GO DOWN. The name given to store-houses and magazines in the East Indies.

GODSEND. An unexpected relief or prize; but wreckers denote by the term vessels and goods driven on shore.[343]

GOE. A creek, smaller than a voe.

GOELETTE [Fr.] A schooner. Also, a sloop-of-war.

GOGAR. A serrated worm used in the north for fishing-bait.

GOGLET. An earthen vase or bottle for holding water.

GOILLEAR. The Gaelic for a sea-bird of the Hebrides, said to come ashore only in January.

GOING ABOUT. Tacking ship.

GOING FREE. When the bowlines are slackened, or sailing with the wind abeam.

GOING LARGE. Sailing off the wind.

GOING THROUGH THE FLEET. A cruel punishment, long happily abolished. The victim was sentenced to receive a certain portion of the flogging alongside the various ships, towed in a launch by a boat supplied from each vessel, the drummers beating the rogue's march.

GOLDENEY. A name for the yellow gurnard among the northern fishermen.

GOLD FISH. The trivial name of the Cyprinus auratus, one of the most superb of the finny tribe. It was originally brought from China, but is now generally naturalized in Europe.

GOLD MOHUR. A well known current coin in the East Indies, varying a little in value at each presidency, but averaging fifteen rupees, or thirty shillings.

GOLE. An old northern word for a stream or sluice.

GOLLETTE. The shirt of mail formerly worn by foot soldiers. Also, a French sloop-of-war, spelled goëlette.

GOMER. A particular form of chamber in ordnance, consisting in a conical narrowing of the bore towards its inner end. It was first devised for the service of mortars, and named after the inventor, Gomer, in the late wars.

GOMERE [Fr.] The cable of a galley.

GONDOLA. A light pleasure-barge universally used on the canals of Venice, generally propelled by one man standing on the stern with one powerful oar, though the larger kinds have more rowers. The middle-sized gondolas are upwards of 30 feet long and 4 broad, with a well furnished cabin amidships, though exclusively black as restricted by law. They always rise at each end to a very sharp point of about the height of a man's breast. The stem is always surmounted by the ferro, a bright iron beak or cleaver of one uniform shape, seemingly derived from the ancient Romans, being the "rostrisque tridentibus" of Virgil, as may be seen in many of Hadrian's large brass medals.

The form of the gondola in the water is traced back till its origin is lost in antiquity, yet (like that of the Turkish caïques) embodies the principles of the wave-line theory, the latest effort of modern ship-building science. Also, a passage-boat of six or eight oars, used on other parts of the coast of Italy.

GONDOLIER. A man who works or navigates a gondola.

GONE. Carried away. "The hawser or cable is gone;" parted, broken.

GONE-GOOSE. A ship deserted or given up in despair (in extremis).[344]

GONFANON [Fr.] Formerly a cavalry banneret; corrupted from the gonfalone of the Italians.

GONG. A kind of Chinese cymbal, with a powerful and sonorous tone produced by the vibrations of its metal, consisting mainly of copper and tutenag or zinc; it is used by some vessels instead of a bell. A companion of Sir James Lancaster in 1605 irreverently states that it makes "a most hellish sound."

GONGA. A general name for a river in India, whence comes Ganges.

GOOD-AT-ALL-POINTS. Practical in every particular.

GOOD-CONDUCT BADGE. Marked by a chevron on the lower part of the sleeve, granted by the admiralty, and carrying a slight increase of pay, to petty officers, seamen, and marines. One of a similar nature is in use in the army.

GOOD MEN. The designation of the able, hard-working, and willing seamen.

GOOD SHOALING. An approach to the shore by very gradual soundings.