‘full and by’ – A sailing condition when the ship ss as close to the wind as she can get and the sails are drawing to the fullest. On a square-rigger this would require “bowlines”, which are sheets (ropes) from the forward bottom corner of the sail to a point forward (i.e. toward the bow).
glass – A word used consistently for three very different things: a telescope, the ship’s timing device, which was an hour-glass, and the barometer. As to timing, the [hour-] glass was reset to local time, if needed, at noon every day when sunsights were taken and the new navy day began. It was then turned every hour, at which time the log was heaved and, if in soundings – the lead line was employed. A ‘half glass’ is half an hour.
gratings – Rectangular wooden frames with criss-crossed wood strips that are used as hatch covers. (They must be covered with tarps if weather-proofing is needed.) Tipped up on end they were used as a place to tie a man for punishment: being lashed with a ‘cat-o-nine-tails’.
grig – An enthusiastic jokester.
groat – A coin of old Scottish money. It was originally 4 pence, but even in 1690 almost worthless.
gunwale – the top edge of a boat’s side. In ships the hull might extend up above the top deck in the waist and effectively act as a solid railing.
HMS - “His Majesty’s Ship”. Note that Swan (Volume 2) is not referred to thus, because the acronym was not officially used in the British Navy before 1789.
head - (see “beakhead”) The toilet on a ship.
heave / hove – To pull or push, as on a line. – OR - a ship can ‘heave to’, meaning adjust sails and rudder in a manner that causes to ship to stop forward motion and lie quietly in rough water. Hove is past tense, as ‘the ship is hove to.’ Also, come into view, as ‘the man hove into view’.
holystone – A lump of soft sandstone used to scrub decks to ensure the hard oak is smooth with no splinters. The deck is then sluiced with seawater, resulting in an almost whitewashed appearance.
idler – A sailor who always works the “day watch”. He would normally not stand night watch –e.g. Cook, carpenter, the boatswain and purser, sail maker and cooper and their mates.
Jonas – A person who brings bad luck aboard a superstitious ship.
Jesuit’s bark – A medicine used to fight malaria (or ague): a powder containing quinine made from the bark of the Cinchona tree that was pressed into large pills and dissolved in water. It was named for the Jesuits who “discovered it” from the natives and eventually produced in large quantity in Peru.
hounds – Protrusions high on a mast onto which blocks are hung for the halyards used to raise the yards.
larboard – The left side of a ship, opposite of ‘starboard’; (now replaced by the term ‘port’).
lay aft – A command meaning: “Go to the back of the ship,” or “Go find the captain on the quarterdeck or in his cabin” or “Go find the officer of the watch,” or similar.
league – 3 statute miles (as opposed to the much shorter distance of a cable, about 200 yards).
lead – (or lead-line): A short lead cylinder into the bottom of which a lump of tallow was set. It is affixed to the end of a line knotted at fathoms and tossed over the side (heaved) to measure depth. The tallow picks up evidence of the bottom – shell, sand, pebbles, etc. as an aid to knowing where the ship is. Two different lengths of line were used: one of about 25 fathoms for shallow areas (in soundings) and one of about 100 fathoms for deeper.
Lombardsman - A pawn shop owner, the name tracing to the Lombard goldsmith-brokers in London.
lugger – A smaller ship equipped with lug sails. Lug sails are set on booms that are not symmetrical to the mast and may be turned and tightened in a manner that allows these built-for-speed boats to outrun and out-point any square-rigger. Not surprisingly, they were popular with pirates.
martingale – A permanent rope or cable attached near the waterline at the bow and at the tip of the bowsprit to prevent the bowsprit from breaking by opposing the upward forces of the forestays.
minion – An old term for a size of cannon that throws a 4-pound ball somewhat over 200 yards.
mizzen – The aftmost (rearmost) mast in a sailing ship, and its sails (e.g. Mizzen course)
money system, English – see appendix
monkey – A triangular metal device used to hold a stack of cannon balls (see ‘shot garland’).
neaped – An embarrassing situation for the captain (and dangerous if the enemy arrived) when his ship is stuck on land on a high tide that is unexpectedly lower than normal –The ship must wait for the next high tide to be freed.
New Kingdom of Granada (Spain) in northwestern South America preceded the Viceroyalty of New Granada (1719) which preceded the modern countries of Columbia, Venezuela, Ecuador, north-western Brazil and Panama.
ordinary – In addition to its normal meaning, a ship ‘in ordinary’ is out of service; “mothballed”. Also, a rating (rank) of seaman which is below ‘able seaman’ but above ‘landsman’ or ‘waister’
pease porridge – Food; a dish of boiled, mashed peas.
pederero – An old term for a swivel gun - a cannon small enough to be mounted on a swivel, often on a rail, that usually fired packs of small shot to mow down men.
poop – The upper aft deck of a ship under / beneath the mizzen sails.
poldavy – A coarse cloth material used by the British for sails or sacks (or for other uses aboard).
priddy – To organize and clean or shine up, as in “priddy the decks”.
pusser – The spoken version of the warrant officer’s title “Purser”. This man is the ships’ accountant and normally responsible for purchasing supplies. (See also – “slops”).
reave – To lace a rope though pulleys for whatever its function.
rutter – A name for the earliest guides to coastal navigation, created and kept by a ship’s master. They contained the trade secrets of where a ship could set in close to shore, where to fish, how to avoid adverse currents (to beat the competition home), etc.
saker – An old term for a size of cannon: that throws a 6-pound ball about two hundred yards.
Sham Abraham – An expression meaning those who are happy just to look busy.
sheet / sheet home – Lines (ropes) to the bottom corners of a sail to control it / Sail pulled fully tight & cleated (or belayed).
shilling – A coin of old English money = 12 pennies, or pence. (See English money table)
shot garland – a tube of canvass hung by each cannon to hold its ammunition (cannon balls)
simoom – A dust storm of huge proportion that blows far out into the Atlantic from the Sahara Desert of Africa. Also known in Israel and Saudi Arabia by other names (Haboob, Harmattan)
skylarking – The game of “follow me if you can” as played by the young boys aboard tall-rigged ships. They would fearlessly climb and swing from rope to rope & mast to mast.
slime draught – medical term possibly peculiar to the navy at the time: some undefined potion to help the patient with sleep or stool softening
slops – (i.e. “The pusser’s slops”): Normally the term referred to ready-made clothes that were sold by the pusser to the ship’s sailors, but could include other supplies such as soap or tobacco, but not alcohol. From the older English term sloppes, meaning trousers.
smoke it – An expression meaning to discover a ruse or to understand.
soundings – Depth measurements. A ship is “in soundings” if it is shallow enough that the depth can be measured (usually with the short lead line).
spar – Any of the wooden components of the rigging: masts & booms.
speak – To enable the captains of ships at sea to converse via speaking trumpets, each ship would let its sails loose to stop and “speak” the other. They did not say ‘speak to’, just ‘speak’.
spike (a gun) – To hammer something into the barrel or touch-hole to render the gun unserviceable.
splice – A place where rope is joined to itse
lf to repair it, extend it, or make a loop.
splice the main brace – Although this expression literally means to repair the rope used to rotate the main yard, its true meaning is to reward the entire crew by serving out an extra tot of rum.
starter / to start – A short piece of rope with a knotted end (makeshift whip) or a riding crop used to jolt a man into action. On many ships, used very frequently by the petty officers.
stem – See ‘bow’. Front vertical beam of the hull (Leading to the modern expression ‘stem to stern’).
stern – The aft (back) end of a boat.
starboard – The right side of a ship (facing forward). The opposite of ‘larboard’ (now ‘port’).
stroke oar – A person, not a thing: the oarsman in a small boat who controls the pace of rowing; the little boat’s ‘captain’.
stuns’l – Spoken form of studdingsails. (See sail illustration.)
supernumerary – An unofficial extra; a passenger, like a lieutenant being carried to his ship.
taffrail – The stern rail of the stern-most deck (the poop deck or quarterdeck, depending on the ship’s construction).
top hamper – The standing rigging & spars above the primary masts: topmasts and above.
truck – The very top of a mast, often being a decoration such as a painted ball above a block (pulley) that could be used to raise signal flags.
van – The front group of a line of ships or convoy, followed by the ‘center’ and the ‘rear’.
waist – The center (top deck) of a ship; the area of deck between the quarterdeck and forecastle.
waisters – Men who normally work in the waist at unskilled jobs; mostly hauling on the lines – sheets, halyards, braces, etc. Usually landsmen; untrained workers.
weather gage – In fighting sailing ships, the advantageous position of being upwind, from which the one with the weather gage can fall down on his enemy in any direction he chooses.
yards (yardarms) – Horizontal spars of a square-rigger’s rigging. They are attached to the masts with hoops that permit them to be rotated and raised or lowered for positioning the sails. The sails hang on the yards and are reefed or furled onto them.
zounds – An expression of exasperation (apparently often used by the real Captain Wright in 1690’s).
A Journal of The Experiment at Jamaica (The Neville Burton 'Worlds Apart' Series Book 2) Page 41
