ee).

SKARKALLA. An old machine for catching fish.

SKART. A name of the cormorant in the Hebrides.

SKATE. A well-known cartilaginous fish of the ray family, _Raia batis_.

SKATE-LURKER. A cant word for a begging impostor dressed as a sailor.

SKEDADDLE, TO. To stray wilfully from a watering or a working party. An
archaism retained by the Americans.

SKEDDAN. The Manx or Erse term for herrings.

SKEEL. A cylindrical wooden bucket. A large water-kid.

SKEER, OR SCAR. A place where cockles are gathered. (_See_ SCAR.)

SKEET. A long scoop used to wet the sides of the ship, to prevent their
splitting by the heat of the sun. It is also employed in small vessels
for wetting the sails, to render them more efficacious in light breezes;
this in large ships is done by the fire engine.

SKEE-TACK. A northern name for the cuttle-fish.

SKEGG. A small and slender part of the keel of a ship, cut slanting, and
left a little without the stern-post; not much used now, owing to its
catching hawsers, and occasioning dead water. The after-part of the keel
itself is also called the skegg.

SKEGG-SHORES. Stout pieces of plank put up endways under the skegg of
the ship, to steady the after-part when in the act of being launched.

SKELDRYKE. An old term for a small passage-boat in the north.

SKELETON OF A REGIMENT. Its principal officers and staff.

SKELLY. The _Leuciscus cephalus_, or chub. In the northern lakes it is
often called the fresh-water herring.

SKELP, TO. To slap with the open hand: an old word, said to have been
imported from Iceland:--

"I canno' tell a';
Some gat a skelp, and some gat a claw."

SKENE, OR SKAIN. A crooked sword formerly used by the Irish.

SKENY. A northern term to express an insulated rock.

SKER, OR SKERRY. A flat insulated rock, but not subject to the
overflowing of the sea: thus we have "the Skerries" in Wales, the
Channel Islands, &c.

SKEW. Awry, oblique; as a skew bridge, skew angle, &c. Also, in
Cornwall, drizzling rain. Also, a rude-fashioned boat.

SKEWER-PIECES. When the salt meat is cut up on board ship by the petty
officers, the captain and lieutenants are permitted to select _whole_
pieces of 8 or 16 lbs., for which they are charged 2 or 4 lbs. extra.
The meat being then divided into messes, the remnants are cut into small
pieces termed skewer-pieces, and being free from bone, are charged _ad
lib._ to those who take them.

SKID-BEAMS. Raised stanchion