GRAYNING. A species of dace found on our northern coast.
GRAY-SCHOOL. A particular shoal of large salmon in the Solway about the
middle of July.
GRAZE. The point at which a shot strikes and rebounds from earth or
water.
GRAZING-FIRE. That which sweeps close to the surface it defends.
GREASY. Synonymous with dirty weather.
GREAT CIRCLE. One whose assumed plane passes through the centre of the
sphere, dividing it equally.
GREAT-CIRCLE SAILING. Is a method for determining a series of points in
an arc of a great circle between two points on the surface of the earth,
for the purpose of directing a ship's course as nearly as possible on
such arc; that is, on the curve of shortest distance between the place
from which she sets out, and that at which she is to arrive.
GREAT GUN. The general sea-term for cannons, or officers of great
repute.
GREAT GUNS AND SMALL-ARMS. The general armament of a ship. Also, a slang
term for the blowing and raining of heavy weather.
GREAT-LINE FISHING. That carried on over the deeper banks of the ocean.
(_See_ LINE-FISHING.) It is more applicable to hand-fishing, as on the
banks of Newfoundland, in depths over 60 fathoms.
GREAT OCEAN. The Pacific, so called from its superior extent.
GREAT SHAKES. _See_ SHAKE.
GREAVES. Armour for the legs.
GRECALE. A north-eastern breeze off the coast of Sicily, _Greece_ lying
N.E.
GREEN. Raw and untutored; a metaphor from unripe fruit--thus Shakspeare
makes Pandulph say:
"How green are you and fresh in this old world!"
GREEN-BONE. The trivial name of the viviparous blenny, or guffer, the
backbone of which is green when boiled; also of the gar-fish.
GREEN-FISH. Cod, hake, haddock, herrings, &c., unsalted.
GREEN-HANDS. Those embarked for the first time, and consequently
inexperienced.
GREEN-HORN. A lubberly, uninitiated fellow. A novice of marked
gullibility.
GREENLAND DOVE. The puffinet; called _scraber_ in the Hebrides; about
the size of a pigeon.
GREENLAND WHALE. _See_ RIGHT WHALE.
GREEN-MEN. The five supernumerary seamen who had not been before in the
Arctic Seas, whom vessels in the whale-fishery were obliged to bear, to
get the tonnage bounty.
GREEN SEA. A large body of water shipped on a vessel's deck; it derives
its name from the green colour of a sheet of water between the eye and
the light when its mass is too large to be broken up into spray.
GREEN-SLAKE. The sea-weed otherwise called _lettuce-laver_ (which see).
GREEN TURTLE. The common name for the edible turtle, which does not
yield tortoise-shell.
GREENWICH STARS. Those used for lunar computations in the nautical
ephemeris.
GREEP. The old orthography of _gripe_.
GREGO. A coarse Levantine jacket, with a hood. A cant term for a rough
great-coat.
GRENADE. Now restricted to hand-grenade, weighing about 2 lbs., and the
fuze being previously lit, is conveniently thrown by hand from the tops
of ships on to an enemy's deck, from the parapet into the ditch, or
generally against an enemy otherwise difficult to reach. A number of
grenades, moreover, being quilted together with their fuzes outwards,
called a "bouquet," is fired short distances with good effect from
mortars in the latter stages of a siege.
GRENADIERS. Formerly the right company of each battalion, composed of
the largest men, and originally equipped for using hand-grenades.
Now-a-days the companies of a regiment are equalized in size and other
matters; and the title in the British army remains only to the fine
regiment of grenadier guards.
GRENADO. The old name for a live shell. Thuanus says that they were
first used at the siege of Wacklindonck, near Gueldres; and that their
inventor, in an experiment in Venice, occasioned the burning of
two-thirds of that city.
GREVE. A low flat sandy shore; whence _graving_ is derived.
GREY-FRIARS. A name given to the oxen of Tuscany, with which the
Mediterranean fleet was supplied.
GREY-HEAD. A fish of the haddock kind, taken on the coast of Galloway.
GREYHOUND. A hammock with so little bedding as to be unfit for stowing
in the nettings.
GRIAN. A Gaelic term for the bottom, whether of river, lake, or sea.
GRIBAN. A small two-masted vessel of Normandy.
GRID. The diminutive of _gridiron_.
GRIDIRON. A solid timber stage or frame, formed of cross-beams of wood,
for receiving a ship with a falling tide, in order that her bottom may
be examined. The Americans also use for a similar purpose an apparatus
called a _screw-dock_, and another known as the _hydraulic-dock_.
GRIFFIN, OR GRIFF. A name given to Europeans during the first year of
their arrival in India; it has become a general term for an
inexperienced youngster.
GRIG. Small eels.
GRILL, TO. To broil on the bars of the galley-range, as implied by its
French derivation.
GRILSE. One of the salmon tribe, generally considered to be a young
salmon on the return from its first sojourn at the sea; though by some
still supposed to be a distinct fish.
GRIN AND BEAR IT. The stoical resignation to unavoidable hardship,
which, being heard on board ship by Lord Byron, produced the fine stanza
in "Childe Harold," commencing "Existence might be borne."
GRIND. A half kink in a hempen cable.
GRIP. The Anglo-Saxon _grep_. The handle of a sword; also a small ditch
or drain. To hold, as "the anchor grips." Also, a peculiar groove in
rifled ordnance.
GRIPE. Is generally formed by the scarph of the stem and keel. (_See_
FORE-FOOT.) This is retained, or shaved away, according to the object of
making the vessel hold a better wind, or have greater facility in
wearing.--_To gripe._ To carry too much weather-helm. A vessel gripes
when she tends to come up into the wind while sailing close-hauled. She
gripes according to her trim. If it continues it is remedied by
lightening forward, or making her draw deeper aft.
GRIPED-TO. The situation of a boat when secured by gripes.
GRIPES. A broad plait formed by an assemblage of ropes, woven and fitted
with thimbles and laniards, used to steady the boats upon the deck of a
ship at sea. The gripes are fastened at their ends to ring-bolts in the
deck, on each side of the boat; whence, passing over her middle and
extremities, they are set up by means of the laniards. Gripes for a
quarter boat are similarly used.
GRITT. An east-country term for the sea-crab.
GROATS. An allowance for each man per mensem, assigned formerly to the
chaplain for pay.
GROBMAN. A west-country term for a sea-bream about two-thirds grown.
GRODAN. A peculiar boat of the Orcades; also the Erse for a gurnard.
GROG. A drink issued in the navy, consisting of one part of spirits
diluted with three of water; introduced in 1740 by Admiral Vernon, as a
check to intoxication by mere rum, and said to have been named from his
grogram coat. Pindar, however, alludes to the Cyclops diluting their
beverage with ten waters. As the water on board, in olden times, became
very unwholesome, it was necessary to mix it with spirits, but iron
tanks have partly remedied this. The addition of sugar and lemon-juice
now makes grog an agreeable anti-scorbutic.
GROG-BLOSSOM. A red confluence on the nose and face of an excessive
drinker of ardent spirits; though sometimes resulting from other causes.
GROG-GROG. The soft cry of the solan goose.
GROGGY, OR GROGGIFIED. Rendered stupid by drinking, or incapable of
performing duty by illness; as also a ship when crank, and birds when
crippled.
GROGRAM. From _gros-grain_. A coarse stuff of which boat-cloaks were
made. From one which Admiral Vernon wore, came the term _grog_.
GROINING. A peculiar mode of submarine embankment; a quay run out
transversely to the shore.
GROMAL. An old word for gromet, or apprentice.
GROMET. A boy of the crew of the ships formerly furnished by the Cinque
Ports (a diminutive from the Teutonic _grom_, a youth); his duty was to
keep ship in harbour. Now applied to the ship's apprentices.
GROMMET, OR GRUMMET. A ring formed of a single strand of rope, laid in
three times round; used to fasten the upper edge of a sail to its stay
in different places, and by means of which the sail is hoisted or
lowered. Iron or wooden hanks have now been substituted. (_See_ HANKS.)
Grommets are also used with pins for large boats' oars, instead of
rowlocks, and for many other purposes.
GROMMET-WAD. A ring made of 1-1/2 or 2 inch rope, having attached to it
two cross-pieces or diameters of the same material; it acts by the ends
of these pieces biting on the interior of the bore of the gun.
GROOVE-ROLLERS. These are fixed in a groove of the tiller-sweep in large
ships, to aid the tiller-ropes, and prevent friction.
GROPERS. The ships stationed in the Channel and North Sea.
GROPING. An old mode of catching trout by tickling them with the hands
under rocks or banks. Shakspeare makes the clown in "Measure for
Measure" say that Claudio's offence was--
"Groping for trouts in a peculiar river."
GROSETTA. A minute coin of Ragusa, somewhat less than a farthing.
GROUND, TO. To take the bottom or shore; to be run aground through
ignorance, violence, or accident.--_To strike ground._ To obtain
soundings.
GROUNDAGE. A local duty charged on vessels coming to anchor in a port or
standing in a roadstead, as _anchorage_.
GROUND-BAIT, OR GROUNDLING. A loach or loche.
GROUND-GRU. _See_ ANCHOR-ICE.
GROUND-GUDGEON. A little fish, the _Cobitis barbatula_.
GROUND-ICE. _See_ ANCHOR-ICE.
GROUNDING. The act of laying a ship on shore, in order to bream or
repair her; it is also applied to runnings aground accidentally when
under sail.
GROUND-PLOT. _See_ ICHNOGRAPHY.
GROUND-SEA. The West Indian name for the swell called _rollers_, or in
Jamaica the _north sea_. It occurs in a calm, and with no other
indication of a previous gale; the sea rises in huge billows, dashes
against the shore with roarings resembling thunder, probably due to the
"northers," which suddenly rage off the capes of Virginia, round to the
Gulf of Mexico, and drive off the sea from America, affecting the Bahama
Banks, but not reaching to Jamaica or Cuba. The rollers set in
terrifically in the Gulf of California, causing vessels to founder or
strike in 7 fathoms, and devastating the coast-line. H.M.S. _Lily_
foundered off Tristan d'Acunha in similar weather. In all the latter
cases no satisfactory cause is yet assigned. (_See_ ROLLER.)
GROUND-STRAKE. A name sometimes used for _garboard-strake_.
GROUND-SWELL. A sudden swell preceding a gale, which rises along shore,
often in fine weather, and when the sea beyond it is calm. (_See_
ROLLER.)
GROUND-TACKLE. A general name given to all sorts of ropes and furniture
which belong to the anchors, or which are employed in securing a ship in
a road or harbour.
GROUND-TIER. The lowest water-casks in the hold before the introduction
of iron tanks. It also implies anything else stowed there.
GROUND-TIMBERS. Those which lie on the keel, and are fastened to it with
bolts through the kelson.
GROUND-WAYS. The large blocks and thick planks which support the cradle
on which a ship is launched. Also, the foundation whereon a vessel is
built.
GROUP. A set of islands not ranged in a row so as to form a chain, and
the word is often used synonymously with _cluster_.
GROUPER. A variety of the snapper, which forms a staple article of food
in the Bermudas, and in the West Indies generally.
GROWEN. _See_ GROWN-SEA.
GROWING. Implies the direction of the cable from the ship towards the
anchors; as, the cable _grows_ on the starboard-bow, _i.e._ stretches
out forwards towards the starboard or right side.
GROWING PAY. That which succeeds the _dead-horse_, or pay in prospect.
GROWLERS. Smart, but sometimes all-jaw seamen, who have seen some
service, but indulge in invectives against restrictive regulations,
rendering them undesirable men. There are also too many "civil growlers"
of the same kidney.
GROWN-SEA. When the waves have felt the full influence of a gale.
GRUANE. The Erse term for the gills of a fish.