COCKSWAIN, or COXEN, the officer who manages and steers a boat, and has the command of the boat’s crew. It is evidently compounded of the words cock and swain, the former of which was anciently used for a yawl or small boat, as appears by several authors; but it has now become obsolete, and is never used by our mariners.
– Yon tall anchoring bark
Diminish’d to her cock; her cock a buoy, &c.
SHAKESPEARE..
– Wm. Falconer’s Dictionary of the Marine (1780).
SIXES AND SEVENS. Left at sixes and sevens: i.e. in confusion; commonly said of a room where the furniture is scattered about; or of a business left unsettled.
– 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue : A Dictionary of British Slang, University Wit, and Pickpocket Eloquence (unabridged) compiled originally by Captain Grose
lickerous Pleasing or tempting to the palate, delightful. Of a person, having an appetite for delicious food, a keen desire for something pleasant. Also, lecherous, lustful, wanton.
– A Sea of Words : A Lexicon and Companion for Patrick O’Brian’s Seafaring Tales by Dean King with John B. Hattendorf and J. Worth Estes.
KARROWS * Hard-core fourteenth- to eighteenth-century Irish gamesters, portrayed by Holingshed’s Chronicles as “a brotherhood of karrowes that prefer to play at chartes [cards] all the yere long, and make it their onely occupation.”
– Forgotten English : A Merry Guide to Antiquated Words, Packed with History, Fun Fact, Literary Excerpts, and Charming Drawings by Jeffrey Kacirk
lychnobite {LIK-noh-bite. Noun.} The OED defines lychnobite as “one who turns night into day; a ‘fast-liver.'”
From the Greek lychnobios, from lychnos, “lamp,” and bios, “life.”
– Endangered Words : A Collection of Rare Gems for Book Lovers by Simon Hertnon.
WHITE BIRD
1885 … If miners see white birds about the gearing of mine-shafts they consider them to be harbingers of disaster.
– A Dictionary of Superstitions edited by Iona Opie and Moira Tatem.
almoner. One who dispenses alms to the poor on behalf of a monarch.
– The Continuum Dictionary of Religion edited by Michael Pye.
gesta: Deeds or tales of adventure, as in the fourteenth-century Gest Historiale of the Destruction of Troy. One of the most famous medieval collections of tales was the Gesta Romanorum (Deeds of the Romans).
– Literary Terms : A Dictionary by Karl Beckson and Arthur Ganz.
ballicatter n, usu pl. Variants chronologically arranged: ballicadoes, ballacarda, ballicater, balacadas, batlicaders, belly-carders, ballicatters, ballycatters, belly-catter, batlycadders, ballacarters, ballycater, ballaclauters, ballacaters, ballacatters, ballacader
1 Ice formed by the action in winter of spray and waves along the shore-line, making a fringe or band on the landward side.
2 A narrow band of ice formed in winter in the salt water along the foreshore or ‘landwash’; … ~ ICE; large slabs, chunks and fragments of this ice after break-up.
3 A floating ice-pan.
4 Frozen moisture around the nose and mouth.
– Dictionary of Newfoundland English edited by G. M. Story, W. J. Kirwin, and J. D. A. Widdowson.
Funk. In a funk or blue funk, To be. The word may derive from Old French funkier, ‘to smoke’, though the connection is uncertain. A funk is a state of apprehensive fear or abject fear. The word first appeared at Oxford in the first half of the 18th Century.
“If I was going to be flogged next minute, I should be in a blue funk.” – THOMAS HUGHES: Tom Brown’s Schooldays, Pt I, ch ii (1857)
– Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase & Fable, Sixteenth Edition revised by Adrian Room.
