term for an eel.

SCALA. Ports and landing-places in the Levant, so named from the old
custom of placing a ladder to a boat to land from. Gang-boards are now
used for that purpose.

SCALDINGS! Notice to get out of the way; it is used when a man with a
load wishes to pass, and would lead those in his way to think that he
was carrying hot water.

SCALE. An old word for commercial emporium, derived from _scala_. Also,
the graduated divisions by which the proportions of a chart or plan are
regulated. Also, the common measures of the sheer-draught, &c. (_See_
GUNTER'S LINE.)

SCALENE TRIANGLE. That which has all three sides unequal.

SCALING. The act of cleaning the inside of a ship's cannon by the
explosion of a reduced quantity of powder. Also, attacking a place by
getting over its defences.

SCALING-LADDERS. Those made in lengths which may be carried easily, and
quickly fitted together to any length required.

SCAMPAVIA. A fast rowing war boat of Naples and Sicily; in 1814-15 they
ranged to 150 feet, pulled by forty sweeps or oars, each man having his
bunk under his sweep. They were rigged with one huge lateen at one-third
from the stem; no forward bulwark or stem above deck; a long brass
6-pounder gun worked before the mast, only two feet above water; the
jib, set on a gaff-like boom, veered abeam when firing the gun. Abaft a
lateen mizen with top-sail, &c.

SCANT. A term applied to the wind when it heads a ship off, so that she
will barely lay her course when the yards are very sharp up.

SCANTLING. The dimensions of a timber when reduced to its standard size.

SCAR. In hydrography applies to a cliff; whence are derived the names
Scarborough, Scarnose, &c. Also, to rocks bare only at low water, as on
the coasts of Lancashire. Also, beds of gravel or stone in estuaries.

SCARBRO' WARNING. Letting anything go by the run, without due notice.
Heywood in his account of Stafford's surprise of Scarborough castle, in
1557, says:--

"This term _Scarborow warning_ grew (some say),
By hasty hanging for rank robbery theare,
Who that was met, but suspected in that way,
Straight he was truss't, whatever he were."

SCARFED. An old word for "decorated with flags."

SCARP. A precipitous steep; as either the escarp or counterscarp of a
fort: but a bank or the face of a hill may also be _scarped_.

SCARPH, OR SCARFING. Is the junction of wood or metal by sloping off the
edges, and maintaining the sa