"Gingerbread-hatches on shore."
GINGERBREAD WORK. Profusely carved decorations of a ship.
GINGERLY. Spruce and smart, but somewhat affected in movement.
GINNELIN. Catching fish by the hand; tickling them.
GINNERS, OR GINNLES. The gills of fish.
GINSENG. A Chinese root, formerly highly prized for its restorative
virtues, and greatly valued among the items of a cargo. It is now almost
out of the _Materia Medica_.
GIP, TO. To take the entrails out of fishes.
GIRANDOLE. Any whirling fire-work.
GIRD, TO. To bind; used formerly for striking a blow.
GIRDLE. An additional planking over the wales or bends. Also, a frapping
for girding a ship.
GIRT. The situation of a ship which is moored so taut by her cables,
extending from the hawse to two distant anchors, as to be prevented from
swinging to the wind or tide. The ship thus circumstanced endeavours to
swing, but her side bears upon one of the cables, which catches on her
heel, and interrupts her in the act of traversing. In this position she
must ride with her broadside or stern to the wind or current, till one
or both of the cables are slackened, so as to sink under the keel; after
which the ship will readily yield to the effort of the wind or current,
and turn her head thither. (_See_ RIDE.)
GIRT-LINE. A whip purchase, consisting of a rope passing through a
single block on the head of a lower mast to hoist up the rigging
thereof, and the persons employed to place it; the girt-line is
therefore the first rope employed to rig a ship. (Sometimes mis-called
_gant-line_.)
GISARMS. An archaic term for a halbert or hand-axe.