FUTTOCKS, the middle division of a ship’s timbers; or those parts which are situated between the floor and the top-timbers …
As the epithet hooked is frequently applied in common language to any thing bent or incurvated, and particularly to several crooked timbers in a ship, as the breast-hooks, fore-hooks, after-hooks, &c. this term is evidently derived from the lowest part or foot of the timber, and from the shape of the piece. Hence.
– Wm. Falconer’s Dictionary of the Marine (1780).
The PICUS (woodpecker) gets its name from Picus the son of Saturn, because he used the creature in auguries. For they say that this bird is something of a soothsayer by the following evidence, viz: in the trees on which it builds its nest, one cannot stick a nail where it sat, or anything else that remains fixed for a long time, without its falling out at once.
– The Book of Beasts : Being a Translation from a Latin Bestiary of the Twelfth Century Made and Edited by T. H. White (1954).
ewer __ A large water pitcher with a wide lip.
HISTORIC. Before internal plumbing, the common bedroom lavatory consisted of a ewer, a large wash basin, and a floor receptacle into which used wash water could be poured. (Or the water was often thrown out the window.)
– A Second Browser’s Dictionary and Native’s Guide to the Unknown American Language by John Ciardi (1983).
Jollies Another name for the Royal Marines. Originally all soldiers carried on board a British warship were known as “jollies,” with a “tame jolly” being a militiaman and a “royal jolly” a marine.
– Ship to Shore: A Dictionary of Everyday Words and Phrases Derived from the Sea by Peter D. Jeans.
HAVE A JOLLY CHRISTMAS!
DISEMBOGUE To sail out of the mouth or strait of a gulf.
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– The Pirate Dictionary by Terry Breverton.
pro’mptuary. A storehouse; a repository; a magazine.
– Johnson’s Dictionary : A Modern Selection by Samuel Johnson (1755), ed. E. L. McAdam and George Milne (1963)
