HORSE-MARINE. An awkward lubberly person. One out of place.
– The Sailor’s Word Book
Category Archives: ADOTW
palfrey (n.) horse for everyday riding
– Shakespeare’s Words : A Glossary & Language Companion by David Crystal and Ben Crystal
MUD HOOK
Slang for anchor.
– The Pirate Dictionary, by Terry Breverton
rubstone (n.) A whetstone. In 1687 Samuel Sewall ordered,
“Send me for my own proper accountt … six doz of rubstones.”
–Colonial American English by Richard M. Lederer, Jr.
CUNTLINE. The space between the bilges of two casks, stowed side by side. Where one cask is set upon the cuntline between two others, they are stowed bilge and cuntline.
– The Seaman’s Friend : A Treatise on Practical Seamanship, by Richard Henry Dana, Jr.
hooker (Fr. houcre, Sp. urca): a Dutch vessel of fifty to 300 tons, single- or double-masted, with a fluyt-shaped hull. Sometimes referred to a three-mast vessel.
– The Sea Rover’s Practice : Pirate Tactics and Techniques, 1630-1730 by Benerson Little
nappy (n.) A frothy ale. Probably because its head was nappy, frothy.
A 1728 song extolled: “a jug of brown Nappy.”
–Colonial American English. by Richard M. Lederer, Jr.
A related note on racism: Continue reading
MEASLES. This has only been by later use restrained to one kind of spotted sickness; but ‘meazel’ (it is spelt in innumerable ways) was once leprosy, or more often the leper himself, and the disease, ‘meselry.’
– A Select Glossary of English Words Used Formerly in Senses Different from Their Present, by Richard Chenevix Trench (1859)
jaculate (n.) A variant spelling of chocolate.
In 1774 John Harrower wrote, “For breakfast either coffee or jaculate.”
–Colonial American English. by Richard M. Lederer, Jr.
LEITH. A channel on the coast of Sweden, like that round the point of Landfoort to Stockholm.
– The Sailor’s Word Book