ZLE TO THE LEFT! The order given to trim the
gun to the object.
MUZZY. Half-drunk.
MYLKERE. The old English name for the milt of a fish.
MYOPARA. An ancient corsair's vessel.
MYRMIDON [from _mur-medon_, a sea-captain]. The Myrmidons were a people
of Thessaly, said to have first constructed ships.
MYSERECORD. A thin-bladed dagger with which a grievously wounded warrior
was despatched as an act of mercy.
MYTH. Obelisk, tower, land, or anything for directing the course by
sight.
N.
NAB. The bolt-toe, or cock of a gun-lock.
NABB. A cant term for the head. Also, a protuberance on the rocky summit
of a hill; a rocky ledge below water.
NACA, OR NACELLE. A French boat without mast or sail, used as early as
the twelfth century.
NACRE. The mother-of-pearl which lines some shells, both univalve and
bivalve.
NACTA. A small transport vessel of early times.
NADIR. The lower pole of the rational horizon, the other being the
zenith.
NAID. A northern term for a lamprey, or large eel.
NAIL, TO. Is colloquially used for binding a person to a bargain. In
weighing articles of food, a nail is 8 lbs.
NAILING A GUN. Synonymous with _cloying_ or _spiking_. When necessary to
abandon cannon, or when the enemy's artillery, though seized, cannot be
taken away, it is proper to spike it, which is done by driving a steel
or other spike into the vent. The best method sometimes to render a gun
serviceable again is to drill a new vent. (_See_ SPIKING.)
NAILS OF SORTS. Nails used in carpentry under the denominations of 4, 6,
8, 10, 24, 30, and 40 penny-nails, all of different lengths.
NAKE! The old word to unsheath swords, or make them naked.
NAKED. State of a ship's bottom without sheathing. Also, a place without
means of defence.
NAKHADAH, OR NACODAH. An Arab sea-captain.
NAME. The name of a merchant ship, as well as the port to which she
belongs, must be painted in a conspicuous manner on her stern. If
changed, she must be registered _de novo_, and the old certificate
cancelled.
NAME-BOARD. The arch-board, or part whereon the ship's name and port are
painted.
NAME-BOOK. The Anglo-Saxon _nom-boc_, a mustering list.
NANCY. An east-country term for a small lobster.
NANCY DAWSON. A popular air by which seamen were summoned to grog.
NANKIN. A light fawn-coloured or white cotton cloth, almost exclusively
worn at one time in our ships on the India station. It was supplied from
China, but is
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