or Asker. A name of the water-newt.
ASKEW. Awry, crooked, oblique.
ASLANT. Formed or placed in an oblique line, as with dagger-knees, &c.—To sail aslant, turning to windward.
ASLEEP. The sail filled with wind just enough for swelling or bellying out—as contrasted with its flapping.
ASPECT. The looming of the land from sea-ward.
ASPER. A minute Turkish coin in accounts, of which three go to a para.
ASPIC. An ancient 12-pounder piece of ordnance, about 11 feet long.
ASPIRANT DE MARINE. Midshipman in the French navy.
ASPORTATION. The carrying of a vessel or goods illegally.
ASSAIL, To. To attack, leap upon, board, &c.
ASSAULT. A hostile attack. The effort to storm a place, and gain possession of a post by main force.
ASSEGAI. The spear used by the Kaffirs in South Africa; it is frequently feather-bent to revolve in its flight.
ASSEGUAY. The knife-dagger used in the Levant.
ASSEMBLY. That long roll beat of the drum by which soldiers, or armed parties, are ordered to repair to their stations. It is sometimes called the fall-in.
ASSES'-BRIDGE. The well-known name of prop. 5, b. i. of Euclid, the difficulty of which makes many give in.
ASSIEGE, To. To besiege, to invest or beset with an armed force.
ASSIGNABLE. Any finite geometrical ratio, or magnitude that can be marked out or denoted.
ASSILAG. The name given in the Hebrides to a small sea-bird with a black bill. The stormy petrel.
ASSISTANCE. Aid or help: strongly enjoined to be given whenever a signal is made requiring it.
ASSISTANT-SURGEON. The designation given some years ago to those formerly called "surgeon's mates," and considered a boon by the corps.
ASSORTMENT. The arrangement of goods, tools, &c., in a series.
ASSURANCE. (See Marine Insurance.) Conveyance or deed: in which light Shakspeare makes Tranio say that his father will "pass assurance."
ASSURGENT. A heraldic term for a man or beast rising out of the sea.
ASSUROR. He who makes out the policy of assurance for a ship: he is not answerable for the neglect of the master or seamen.
A-STARBOARD. The opposite to a-port.
A-STAY. Said of the anchor when, in heaving in, the cable forms such an angle with the surface as to appear in a line with the stays of the ship.—A long stay apeek is when the cable forms an acute angle with the water's surface, or coincides with the main-stay—short stay when it coincides with the fore-stay.
ASTELLABRE. The same as astrolabe.
ASTERIA. See Sea-star.
ASTERISM. Synonymous with constellation, a group of stars.
ASTERN. Any distance behind a vessel; in the after-part of the ship; in the direction of the stern, and therefore the opposite of ahead.—To drop astern, is to be left behind—when abaft a right angle to the keel at the main-mast, she drops astern.
ASTEROIDS. The name by which the minor planets between the orbits of Jupiter and Mars were proposed to be distinguished by Sir W. Herschel. They are very small bodies, which have all been discovered since the commencement of the present century; yet their present number is over eighty.
ASTRAGAL. A moulding formerly round a cannon, at a little distance from its breech, the cascabel, and another near the muzzle. It is a half round on a flat moulding.
ASTRAL. Sidereal, relating to the stars.
ASTROLABE. An armillary sphere.—Sea-astrolabe, a useful graduated brass ring, with a movable index, for taking the altitude of stars and planets: it derived its name from the armillary sphere of Hipparchus, at Alexandria.
ASTROMETRY. The numerical expression of the apparent magnitudes of the so-called fixed stars.
ASTRONOMICAL CLOCK. A capital bit of horology, the pendulum of which is usually compensated to sidereal time, for astronomical purposes. (See Sidereal Time.)
ASTRONOMICAL HOURS. Those which are reckoned from noon or midnight of one natural day, to noon or midnight of another.
ASTRONOMICAL OBSERVATIONS. There have been occasional slight records of celestial phenomena from the remotest times, but the most useful ones are those collected and preserved by Ptolemy. Since 1672, science has been enriched with a continued series of astronomical observations of accuracy and value never dreamed of by the ancients.
ASTRONOMICAL PLACE OF A STAR OR PLANET. Its longitude or place in the ecliptic, reckoned from the first point of Aries, according to the natural order of the signs.
ASTRONOMICAL TABLES. Tables for facilitating the calculation of the apparent places of the sun, moon, and planets.
ASTRONOMICALS. The sexagesimal fractions.
ASTRONOMY. The splendid department of the mixed sciences which teaches the laws and phenomena of the universal system. It is practical when it treats of the magnitudes, periods, and distances of the heavenly bodies; and physical when it investigates the causes. In the first division the more useful adaptation nautical is included (which see).
ASTROSCOPIA. Skill in examining the nature and properties of stars with a telescope.
ASTRUM, or Astron. Sirius, or the Dog-star. Sometimes applied to a cluster of stars.
ASWIM. Afloat, borne on the waters.
ASYLUM. A sanctuary or refuge; a name given to a benevolent institution at Greenwich, for 800 boys and 200 girls, orphans of seamen and marines. The Royal Military Asylum is also an excellent establishment of a similar nature at Chelsea, besides numerous others.
ASYMMETRY. A mathematical disproportion. The relation of two quantities which have no measure in common.
ASYMPTOTES. Lines which continually approximate each other, but can never meet.
ATABAL. A Moorish kettle-drum.
ATAGHAN. See Yataghan.
AT ANCHOR. The situation of a vessel riding in a road or port by her anchor.
ATAR. A perfume of commerce, well known as atar-of-roses; atar being the Arabic word for fragrance, corrupted into otto.
A'TAUNTO, or All-a-taunt-o. Every mast an-end and fully rigged.
ATEGAR. The old English hand-dart, named from the Saxon aeton, to fling, and gar, a weapon.
ATHERINE. A silvery fish used in the manufacture
