bellow or roar vehemently.—Blare, a mixture of hair and tar made into a kind of paste, used for tightening the seams of boats.
BLARNEY. Idle discourse; obsequious flattery.
BLASHY. Watery or dirty; applied to weather, as "a blashy day," a wet day. In parlance, trifling or flimsy.
BLAST. A sudden and violent gust of wind: it is generally of short duration, and succeeded by a fine breeze.—To blast, to blow up with gunpowder.
BLAST-ENGINE. A ventilating machine to draw off the foul air from the hold of a ship, and induce a current of fresh air into it.
BLATHER. Thin mud or puddle. Also, idle nonsense.
BLAY. A name of the bleak.
BLAZE, To. To fire away as briskly as possible. To blaze away is to keep up a running discharge of fire-arms. Also, to spear salmon. Also, in the woods, to mark a tree by cutting away a portion of its outer surface, thus leaving a patch of whiter internal surface exposed, to call attention or mark a track.
BLAZERS. Applied to mortar or bomb vessels, from the great emission of flame to throw a 13-inch shell.
BLAZING STARS. The popular name of comets.
BLEAK. The Leuciscus alburnus of naturalists, and the fresh-water sprat of Isaak Walton. The name of this fish is from the Anglo-Saxon blican, owing to its shining whiteness—its lustrous scales having long been used in the manufacture of false pearls.
BLEEDING THE MONKEY. The monkey is a tall pyramidal kid or bucket, which conveys the grog from the grog-tub to the mess—stealing from this in transitu is so termed.
BLEED THE BUOYS. To let the water out.
BLENNY. A small acanthopterygious fish (Blennius).
BLETHER-HEAD. A blockhead.
BLETHERING. Talking idle nonsense; insolent prate.
BLIND. A name on the west coast of Scotland for the pogge, or miller's thumb (Cottus cataphractus).
BLIND. Everything that covers besiegers from the enemy. (See Orillon.)
BLINDAGE. A temporary wooden shelter faced with earth, both in siege works and in fortified places, against splinters of shells and the like.
BLIND-BUCKLERS. Those fitted for the hawse-holes, which have no aperture for the cable, and therefore used at sea to prevent the water coming in.
BLIND-HARBOUR. One, the entrance of which is so shut in as not readily to be perceived.
BLIND-ROCK. One lying just under the surface of the water, so as not to be visible in calms.
BLIND-SHELL. One which, from accident or bad fuze, has fallen without exploding, or one purposely filled with lead, as at the siege of Cadiz. Also used at night filled with fuze composition, and enlarged fuze-hole, to indicate the range.
BLIND-STAKES. A sort of river-weir.
BLINK OF THE ICE. A bright appearance or looming (the iceberg reflected in the atmosphere above it), often assuming an arched form; so called by the Greenlanders, and by which reflection they always know when they are approaching ice long before they see it. In Greenland blink means iceberg.
BLIRT. A gust of wind and rain.
BLOAT, To. To dry by smoke; a method latterly applied almost exclusively to cure herrings or bloaters.—Bloated is also applied to any half-dried fish.
BLOCCO. Paper and hair used in paying a vessel's bottom.
BLOCK. (In mechanics termed a pulley.) Blocks are flattish oval pieces of wood, with sheaves in them, for all the running ropes to run in. They are used for various purposes in a ship, either to increase the mechanical power of the ropes, or to arrange the ends of them in certain places on the deck, that they may be readily found when wanted; they are consequently of various sizes and powers, and obtain various names, according to their form or situation, thus:—A single block contains only one sheave or wheel. A double block has two sheaves. A treble or threefold block, three, and so on. A long-tackle or fiddle-block has two sheaves—one below the other, like a fiddle. Cistern or sister block for top-sail lifts and reef tackles. Every block is composed of three, and generally four, parts:—(1.) The shell, or outside wooden part. (2.) The sheave, or wheel, on which the rope runs. (3.) The pin, or axle, on which the sheave turns. (4.) The strop, or part by which the block is made fast to any particular station, and is usually made either of rope or of iron. Blocks are named and distinguished by the ropes which they carry, and the uses they serve for, as bowlines, braces, clue-lines, halliards, &c. &c. They are either made or morticed (which see).
BLOCK. The large piece of elm out of which the figure is carved at the head of the ship.
BLOCKADE. The investment of a town or fortress by sea and land; shutting up all the avenues, so that it can receive no relief.—To blockade a port is to prevent any communication therewith by sea, and cut off supplies, in order to compel a surrender when the provisions and ammunition are exhausted.—To raise a blockade is to discontinue it.—Blockade is violated by egress as well as by ingress. Warning on the spot is sufficient notice of a blockade de facto. Declaration is useless without actual investment. If a ship break a blockade, though she escape the blockading force, she is, if taken in any part of her future voyage, captured in delicto, and subject to confiscation. The absence of the blockading force removes liability, and might (in such cases) overrules right.
BLOCK AND BLOCK. The situation of a tackle when the blocks are drawn close together, so that the mechanical power becomes arrested until the tackle is again overhauled by drawing the blocks asunder. Synonymous with chock-a-block.
BLOCKHOUSE. A small work, generally built of logs, to protect adjacent ports. Blockhouses were primarily constructed in our American colonies, because they could be immediately built from the heavy timber felled to clear away the spot, and open the lines of fire. The ends were simply crossed alternately and pinned. Two such structures, with a space of 6 feet for clay, formed, on an elevated position, a very formidable casemated work. The slanting overhanging roof furnished excellent cover in lieu of loop-holes for musketry.
BLOCK-MAKER. A manufacturer of blocks.
BLOCKS. The several transverse pieces or logs of timber, piled in plane, on which a ship is built, or to place her on for repair: they consist of solid pieces of oak laid on the ground-ways.
BLOCKS, FIXED. See Fixed Blocks.
BLOOD-SUCKERS. Lazy fellows, who, by skulking, throw their proportion of labour on the shoulders of their shipmates.
BLOODY FLAG. A large red flag.
BLOOM. A peculiar warm blast of wind; a term used in iron-foundries.
BLORE. An old word for a stiff gale.
BLOUT. A northern term for the sudden breaking-up of a storm. Blout has been misused for blirt.
BLOW. Applied to the breathing of whales and other cetaceans. The expired air from the lungs being highly charged with moisture, which condenses at the temperature of the atmosphere, appears like a column of steam.
BLOW.
