by Dean King
sciatic nerve The largest nerve in the human body, which emerges from the spine in the lower back and runs down the back of the thigh to the foot. Sciatica is pain along the sciatic nerve, often caused by pressure exerted on the spinal cord by a ruptured or dislocated disk.
sciatic stay A strong rope running from the MAINMAST to the FOREMAST HEADS in merchant ships and supporting a TACKLE that can be shifted over the MAIN or FORE HATCHWAYS when loading and unloading cargo.
Scilly Islands or Scillies Thirty miles southwest of Land’s End in Cornwall, England, an archipelago of small isles, reefs, and rocks often shrouded in fog and mist and consequently the site of many shipwrecks.
scimitar A short, curved, single-edged sword, used chiefly by the Turks and Persians.
scoff To eat voraciously, devour.
Scombridae The mackerel family. A scombri is a mackerel.
scops owl Any of a group of small owls, such as Otus scops (Old World scops owl) and O. sunia (Oriental scops owl), having ear tufts and a whistling call.
scoria Rough masses formed by the cooling of molten lava when exposed to the air, distended by the expansion of trapped gases.
scow A large flat-bottomed rowed boat, used as a LIGHTER or PUNT, or to ferry men.
scrag To wring the neck of; to manhandle; to kill.
scraper A cocked hat.
scratch Hastily gathered or assembled.
scratch-wig or scratch-bob A small, short wig.
scrim A thin canvas used for curtains and upholstery lining.
scrofula Tuberculosis of the cervical lymph glands, resulting in chronic skin ulcers. Often caused by the bovine form of tuberculosis (Mycobacterium bovis), it was not as likely to kill the patient as the usual pulmonary form of the disease (caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis). It was also called the King’s Evil, because it was supposed to be curable by the touch of the sovereign; the last British monarch to carry out the annual ceremonial touching was Queen Anne (d. 1714).
scroll In shipbuilding, a curved timber bolted to the KNEE of the HEAD.
scruple A unit of apothecary weight equal to 20 grains, or approximately 1.3 grams.
scrutineer One whose job is to examine.
scrutoire or escritoire A writing desk made to contain stationery and documents, and in early use, often portable.
scud To run BEFORE THE WIND in a storm under reduced sail or BARE POLES. In a gale, the Master had the choice of running before the wind if there was enough sea room or lying to if there was not. Also, a loose, vapory cloud fragment drifting rapidly under rain clouds (a fracto-strarus cloud).
This ship is scudding before a heavy wind with only the forecourse set to maintain steering control. (From Serres’s Liber Nauticus).
scull An oar worked from side to side over the STERN of the boat, the blade being reversed at each turn. One of two light oars used in a dinghy by a single rower.
scullery A small room next to a kitchen used for washing dishes and other dirty work; a back kitchen.
scunner To shrink back with fear. To feel violent disgust or aversion, to feel sick.
scupper To SCUTTLE. A slang term meaning to confuse or defeat. Also, one of many drain openings in a ship’s side at deck level that allow water to run into the sea. To be on one’s scuppers means to be sunk or killed.
scurvy or scorbutus A disease now known to be caused by insufficient ascorbic acid (vitamin C) in the diet and characterized by lethargy, foul breath, extreme tenderness of the gums, loss of teeth, PETECHIAE, and pains in the limbs. Common on long voyages because the diet included few, if any, fruits and vegetables. See BLANE.
scut A short erect tail, as of a hare, rabbit, or deer.
scuttle To sink a vessel deliberately. Also, a porthole in the deck or side of a ship for lighting and ventilation. Scuttle-hatch: a lid or covering of a scuttle.
scuttle-butt A cask of drinking-water on board ship. Gossip.
sea-coal Coal, as distinguished from charcoal.
sea-cock An opening through the hull, with a valve, to let a controllable amount of seawater into the ship.
sea-elephant An elephant seal, either of two types of large seals with trunklike snouts that inhabit the Pacific coastal waters of the Americas.
Sea-Fencibles See FENCIBLES.
sea-leopard A leopard seal (Ogmorhinus leptonyx), which inhabits the Southern and Antarctic seas.
sealer A vessel engaged in the sealing trade, killing seals for fur, hides, and oil.
sea (or nautical) mile Equivalent to 6,076 feet, or one minute of latitude. Approximately 1.15 statute miles.
sea-otter A large marine otter (Enhydra lutris) found on the shores of the North Pacific.
sea-pie A layered dish of meat, vegetables, and fish in between crusts of dough, the number of layers determining whether it was a two-or three-decker. A popular dish on board ship when the ingredients were available.
sear The part of a gunlock that engages with the notches of the tumbler in order to keep the hammer at full or half cock, and released at full cock by pressure on the trigger.
seat of ease Latrine seat, located in the Captain’s QUARTER-GALLERY or, for all others on a ship, along the BOWSPRIT (therefore the four to eight holes were called the HEAD).
sea-wrack Seaweed, especially any of the large coarse kinds frequently washed up on the shore.
sebi confectio discolor A mottled concoction of suet (Latin).
second A person who represents and assists a principal in a duel and arranges the logistics, such as carrying the challenge, choosing the site, and loading weapons.
second of arc In angular measure, 1/60 of a minute, 1/3,600 of a degree.
secret du roi Secret service of the king (French).
sectary A member of a sect or someone who is particularly zealous in the cause of a sect.
seizing A small cord used in binding two ropes together. Also, the line that results when one rope is “seized” to another.
Selsey Bill East of PORTSMOUTH, a tongue of land that projects into the English Channel and is surrounded by miles of shallows, which before the seas encroached were roamed by deer and are still called the “park” by fishermen.
selvage or selvedge The side edges, or guarding, of a net or sail.
selvagee A STROP (loop) made of tightly wound rope yarn and used for lifting or securing. A strop made by wrapping small SPUNYARN around two or more nails or spikes and then splicing or tying them together and tarring them. Stronger than a spliced strop, it is used around a SHROUD or STAY to attach a TACKLE.
semaphore An apparatus consisting of an upright post with one or more arms moving in a vertical plane that was first used for signaling in Britain in 1816, when it replaced an older TELEGRAPH system in use by the British ADMIRALTY. A semaphore code could also be transmitted using handheld flags or lights.
send See SCEND.
senna A tropical shrub of the genus Cassia, bearing yellow flowers and flat greenish pods, used chiefly as a cathartic.
sennet also sennit or sinnet CORDAGE used for making HALYARDS, mats, and LASHings. Also, plaited straw, palm leaves, and the like, used to make grass hats.
sennight A week.
sensu strictu (or sensu stricto) In the restricted sense (Latin). Of a scientific term, in the narrow sense.
sepoy A native of India employed as a soldier in the command of Europeans, especially the British.
Seppings, Sir Robert (1767-1840) A naval architect, who rose from SHIPWRIGHT’S apprentice at PLYMOUTH Dockyard to Surveyor of the Navy. He contributed a number of innovations to shipbuilding, including “Seppings blocks,” which improved accessibility to a ship’s hull in DRY-DOCK. For this he was made master shipwright at CHATHAM, where he introduced diagonal bracing of frame timbers for added longitudinal hull strength and modified hull design to provide a cleaner run.
sepsis Putrefaction (though the meaning is more specific today).
septiéme Seventh (French).
sequela An aftereffect of a prev
ious disease or accident.
sequi me Follow me (Latin).
serang The BOATSWAIN or captain of a LASCAR (Indian or East Indian) crew.
sercial A type of MADEIRA wine.
serjeanty A form of feudalism in which the subject rendered a specified service to the king. In the 13th century, petit serjeanty bound a person to a service “amounting to half a mark or less,” such as taking to the king a bag, an arrow, or a bow without string.
Seth Adam and Eve’s third son, who was born after Cain murdered his brother, Abel, and so named by Eve, who said, “For God has appointed [in Hebrew, ‘seth’] another seed for me instead of Abel” (Gen. 4:25).
Sethians According to the 1771 Encyclopaedia Britannica: “Christian heretics, so called because they paid divine worship to Seth, whom they looked upon to be Jesus Christ the Son of God, but who was made by a third divinity, and substituted in the room of the two families of Abel and Cain, which had been destroyed by the deluge. These heretics appeared in Egypt in the second century; and as they were addicted to all sorts of debauchery, they did not want for followers, and continued in Egypt about two hundred years.”
settee A decked vessel with a long pointed PROW, carrying two or three LATEEN-rigged MASTS, used primarily in the eastern Mediterranean.
setting-rule or composing-rule A brass or steel rule against which a printer sets the type in a composing stick.
settle A long wooden bench, usually with arms, a high back, and a locker or box underneath.
settle a person’s hash To reduce to order; to silence or subdue.
settling day A day appointed for settling accounts. The fortnightly payday on the London Stock Exchange.
Seven Dials Behind the junction of Shaftsbury Avenue and Charing Cross Road, this section of London was built on what was once known as Cock and Pye Fields. It was so named for a column in the center topped by seven sundials, facing the seven streets that radiated out from there. Seven Dials was noted for its poverty and squalor.
Seven Years’ War The third Silesian war (1756-1763), in which Austria, France, Russia, Saxony, and Sweden were allied against Frederick the Great of Prussia. Ended by the Treaty of Paris of 1763.
seventy-four A third-rate ship carrying 74 guns.
sextant A hand-held optical instrument invented in 1757 by Captain (later Admiral) John Campbell and used in navigation for measuring horizontal and vertical angular distances between objects, especially for observing the angle of a celestial object above the horizon in determining longitude and latitude at sea. The ultimate refinement of the QUADRANT, a sextant, so called because its calibrated arc, or limb, is one sixth of a circle, is highly accurate.
shaddock The large pear-shaped citrus fruit of the tree Citrus maxima, native to the EAST INDIES and the Pacific. Lemon-yellow in color, it resembles a grapefruit but has a loose rind and pungent, tart, and agreeable but coarse, dry pulp. Also called pompelmous or pommelo. Also, the tree that it grows on. Named after Captain Shaddock, the commander of an EAST INDIA COMPANY ship, who took the tree to Jamaica in the late 17th century.
shag A cormorant, a dark seabird with a hooked bill, long neck, and wedge-shaped tail; especially the crested cormorant, which in the breeding season has a crest of long curly plumes.
shakings Pieces of old rope and canvas used for making OAKUM. The deck sweepings at the end of the day
shallop A boat powered by oars or by a sail, used in shallow waters or between large ships; a dinghy or SKIFF. Also, a large, heavy boat with one FORE-AND-AFT-rigged MAST, the type that might be built by a ship’s carpenters from the salvage of a shipwreck and used to send for help.
sham Short for champagne.
shambling Exhibiting shambles, an awkward, abnormal gait or movement.
Shannon, H.M.S. The best-known ship of this name was the fifth-rate 38-gun FRIGATE launched in 1806. In June of 1813, under the command of Captain Philip BROKE and known for her expert gunnery, she fought a brief but bloody battle with the 50-gun U.S. frigate CHESAPEAKE off Boston, an event recreated by O’Brian in The Fortune of War, with Jack Aubrey aboard the Shannon as a passenger and combatant. Commanded by Captain James LAWRENCE, the Chesapeake surrendered with 61 crew lost, including her Captain, and more than 85 wounded. The Shannon, whose victory provided a much-needed boost in morale for the Royal Navy, which had recently lost several discouraging actions to the upstart Americans, suffered 33 killed and 50 wounded. Made into a RECEIVING SHIP in 1832, the Chesapeake was finally broken up in 1859. Given the fame that Lawrence’s encounter with the Shannon earned in the United States, it is ironic that the ADMIRALTY unwittingly renamed the ship St. Lawrence in 1844.
shanty See CHANTERY.
sharper A cheat, swindler, rogue; a fraudulent gamester.
sharp-set Very hungry.
Shaw, George (1751-1813) An ordained deacon, Shaw studied medicine at Edinburgh and Oxford and became a botanical lecturer at Oxford. In 1788, he helped found the Linnean Society. He also served as keeper of the natural-history section of the British Museum.
Shawnee A tribe of Algonquian-speaking American Indians, formerly inhabiting the Tennessee Valley region and now living in Oklahoma. A member of this tribe or its language.
shay See CHAISE.
shears See SHEERS.
shearwater Any of various long-winged seabirds, related to the PETREL and the ALBATROSS, that skim the surface of the water so closely when they fly that they seem to shear it. Shearwaters are migratory, spending most of their lives over the water, but they nest on land in great colonies.
sheathbill A white shore bird that inhabits the Antarctic region and has the base of its bill ensheathed in a horny case.
sheave In a BLOCK, the grooved and revolving wheel over which the rope travels.
shebeen In Ireland and Scotland, a shop or house where liquor is sold without a licence; a lowly pub.
sheer-hulk An old ship cut down and fitted with SHEERS, for masting other vessels.
Sheerness A naval dockyard at the mouth of the Medway in Kent on England’s southeastern coast, whose specialty was FRIGATES and smaller vessels. Sheerness was also the site of a small naval hospital.
sheers or sheer-legs A device consisting of two or three long poles lashed together at the top, steadied by GUYS, and spread apart at the base, used to support hoisting TACKLE on ships and in dockyards for lifting heavy weights, especially in raising and fixing MASTS.
sheerwater See SHEARWATER.
sheet A rope attached to either of the lower corners (CLEWS) of a square sail or the BOOM or after lower corner (clew) of a FORE-AND-AFT sail and used to extend the sail or to alter its direction. To sheet home is to HAUL in a sheet until the foot of a sail is as straight and as taut as possible.
sheet-anchor Traditionally, the largest of a ship’s anchors, but in Aubrey’s day, similar in size to the BOWER-ANCHORS, which where secured at the CATHEADS. The sheet-anchor (that to which the sheet-cable was secured, ordinarily carried on the STARBOARD side) and a fourth anchor on the other side were secured abreast the FOREMAST, on the CHANNELS, usually set up with tumblers, so they could be dropped in an emergency should the bower anchors fail to hold.
Sheffield plate A copper plate coated with silver by a process developed in the manufacturing city of Sheffield in Yorkshire, England, about 1742.
Sheikh-al-Jabal A chief of the ASSASSINS in Syria at a time when they occupied a string of mountain fortresses. French crusaders referred to him as “le vieux de la montagne” (“the Old Man of the Mountain”).
shell The outer casing of a BLOCK. A THIMBLE DEAD-EYE block used to join the ends of two ropes. The dug-out portion of a West Indian canoe.
shellback A hardened sailor, especially one raised at sea.
Shelmerston A fictional seaport on the English Channel in southwest England, most likely in Devon on Tor Bay. Facing east in a protected bay that “on either hand … curved out in tawny cliffs,” the town, home port for the LETTER OF MARQUE Surprise, is dominated by houses of
both worship and prostitution, and its prime seamen honed their skills largely as smugglers.
Shepton Mallet A market town in Somerset, 22 miles southwest of Bath.
shift A change in the direction of the wind. A clockwise shift is said to be veering and a counterclockwise shift, BACKING. Also, an item of men’s or women’s underclothing, usually made of linen or cotton. Later, a woman’s chemise. To change, as in clothes.
shilling A former English monetary unit and silver coin equal to 12 pence or V20 of a pound sterling.
shilly-shally Vacillating, irresolute, undecided.
shindy A spree, merrymaking. Also, a type of dance among seamen.
shingle Small, smooth stones found by the sea. Also, a beach or other area covered with loose roundish pebbles.
ship Today, any sea-going vessel of considerable size, but in the 18th century, specifically a vessel with three or more MASTS, SQUARE-RIGGED, and suitable for navigating the high seas. To put an object in position to perform its function, as to ship oars. To embark. To take in water from the sea.
ship-chandler A dealer who supplies stores to ships.
ship of the line A RATEd, sailing warship that is large enough and sufficiently armed to be in the line of battle during a fleet action.
ship-rigged Carrying square sails on all three MASTS. See also SHIP.
ship’s bells The system for telling time on board ship. The ship bell, struck every half hour, indicates by the number of strokes the number of half-hours of the watch that have elapsed. The striking of eight bells indicates midnight. After midnight, one bell is struck at 12:30 A.M., two bells at 1:00 A.M., three bells at 1:30 A.M., and so forth until eight bells are struck again at 4:00 A.M., at which point the above progression is repeated until eight bells are again struck at 8:00 A.M. In this way eight bells ring every four hours around the clock. See also WATCH.