In this week’s movie-slot at Webb, I’m celebrating the 50th anniversary of Jaws. So here at Weird Words we’re doing that, too — with a look at vocab from the world of boats and sailing.
Earlier, we covered more than a dozen regular words that have a special meaning on deck — terms like beam, boom, draft, bridge and painter.
This week and next, we’ll look at an even longer list of vocab restricted almost entirely to sailing. Here’s the first half:
Abaft – As we saw in our previous piece, aft means “toward the back” — or the stern — of the vessel; it’s short for “after,” as in, “what comes after the main part.” Abaft is a variant on that — reworking the original phrase “by aft” (abaft is easier to say & hear — which can be important on a windy, splashy deck).
Ahoy – Pronounced “uh-HOY,” this is now fairly well known from pirate movies; it’s a hail to other ships, essentially meaning “hello over there!”
Baggywrinkle – “Protective gear made from frayed-out rope and used on ship rigging to prevent chafing” (Merriam-Webster).
Bimmy – According to NauticEd.org, on which I rely heavily in these pieces, bimmy is “a punitive instrument” — apparently used for shipboard discipline.
That site has several other terms defined the same way: sennet, teazer, togey and kissing the gunner’s daughter (!). Little info is provided on the actual mechanics involved; so I assume they’re quite unpleasant — and a reminder that, at least in olden times, sailing was not for the faint of heart.
Booby – Again from NauticEd: “a type of bird that has little fear and therefore is particularly easy to catch, hence ‘booby prize.’”
My beloved American Heritage Dictionary has booby as a tropical seabird related to the gannet. They are pretty funny-looking — a bit like penguins; one subspecies has pastel-blue feet!
Bosun (“BOE-sun”) – Sailors, who must often shout amidst competing maritime winds and surf, tend to prefer simpler words; this one abbreviates “boatswain” and is sometimes close to one syllable: bos’n. The bosun is a low-ranking but important officer in charge of “rigging, anchors, cables, and deck crew” (AHD). (“Swain” is an old-fashioned term for a lad, esp. one from the country.)
Bumboat – “Any small boat used for ferrying supplies or goods for sale to a ship at anchor or at a mooring” (Collins). It derives not from our common word “bum,” but from a type of tree used to make small boats.
Chock-a-block – An adjective to describe tackle drawn together as tight as possible; from this we get the more common adjective meaning “in a jammed or crowded condition” (Random House Collegiate).
Coxswain – Again using “swain” (see bosun, above), this is — per Dictionary.com — “a person who is in charge of a ship’s boat and its crew, under an officer, and who steers it” (i.e., helmsman). From an Old French word, coque, meaning “canoe”; also spelled cockswain.
Cuddy – A small cabin in the boat, usually for eating or cooking (Winston).
Fo’c’sle – Once again handily shortening a three-syllable word (forecastle), this is pronounced FOLK-sul; in fact, if you look up the longer word at Dictionary.com, it still lists the shorter pronunciation as preferred.
As for meaning: The fo’c’sle is “a partial deck, above the upper deck and at the head of the vessel; traditionally the sailors’ living quarters” (NauticEd).
Gunnel – The upper edge of a boat’s side or hull — so called because on a large ship, it originally supported the mounted guns (Online Etymology Dictionary).
The original word is gunwale; but again, even for that spelling, the simpler pronunciation is preferred.
Killick – A small anchor. NauticEd has some brief material about the rigors of untangling a “fouled killick”; so I asked Google for more info and got this clarification: “The Leading Seaman rank insignia traditionally features an anchor with a length of rope twisted around it; the fouled anchor symbolizes the daily trials and tribulations faced by Chief Petty Officers.” For this reason, says NauticEd, seamen promoted to the first step are often called killicks.
Matelot – British slang for “sailor.” Originally French, it is generally pronounced “MAT-low”; can be spelled matelow as well.
Looking ahead, our final selection of boating terms will include orlop, rigol, scuttlebutt, spinnaker and yarr.
So avast for now, and I’ll see you here on deck next week!
