brightly burnished.
BROWN BILL. The old weapon of the English infantry: hence, perhaps the expression "Brown Bess" for a musket.
BROWN GEORGE. A hard and coarse biscuit.
BROWNIE. The Polar bear, so called by the whalers. It is also a northern term for goblin.
BROWN JANET. A cant phrase for a knapsack.
BROWN-PAPER WARRANT. See Warrant.
BROWSE. A light kind of dunnage.
BRUISE-WATER. A ship with very bluff bows, built more for carrying than sailing.
BRUISING WATER. Pitching heavily to a head-sea, and making but little head-way.
BRUN-SWYNE. An early name for a seal.
BRUSH. A move; a skirmish.
BRYDPORT. An old word signifying cable. The best hemp grew at Bridport, in Dorsetshire; and there was a statute, that the cables and hawsers for the Royal Navy were to be made thereabouts.
BUB. A liquor or drink. Bub and grub meaning inversely meat and drink.
BUBBLE. Another term for spirit-level, used for astronomical instruments.
BUBBLER. A fish found in the waters of the Ohio, thus named from the bubbling noise it makes.
BUCCANEER. A name given to certain piratical rovers, of various European nations, who formerly infested the coasts of Spanish America. They were originally inoffensive settlers in Hispaniola, but were inhumanly driven from their habitations by the jealous policy of the Spaniards; whence originated their implacable hatred to that nation. Also, a large musketoon, about 8 feet in length, so called from having been used by those marauders.
BUCENTAUR. A large and splendid galley of the doge of Venice, in which he received the great lords and persons of quality who went there, accompanied by the ambassadors and councillors of state, and all the senators seated on benches by him. The same vessel served also in the magnificent ceremony on Ascension-day, when the doge threw a ring into the sea to espouse it, and to denote his dominion over the Gulf of Venice.
BUCHAN BOILERS. The heavy breaking billows among the rocks on the coast of Buchan.
BUCHT. A Shetland term for lines of 55 fathoms.
BUCK, To. To wash a sail.
BUCKALL. An earthen wine-cup used in the sea-ports of Portugal, Spain, and Italy. [From bocale, It.]
BUCKER. A name for the grampus in the Hebrides. It is also applied, on some of our northern coasts, to the porpoise.
BUCKET. A small globe of hoops, covered with canvas, used as a recall for the boats of whalers.
BUCKET-ROPE. That which is tied to a bucket for drawing water up from alongside.
BUCKETS. Are made either of canvas, of leather, or of wood; the latter are used principally for washing the decks, and therefore answer the purposes of pails.
BUCKET-VALVE. In a steamer's engine, is a flat metal plate filling up the passage between the air-pump and the condenser, and acted upon by both in admitting or repressing the passage of water.
BUCKHORN. Whitings, haddocks, thorn-backs, gurnet, and other fish, cleaned, gently salted, and dried in the sun.
BUCKIE. A northern name for the whelk.
BUCKIE-INGRAM. A name for the hermit-crab.
BUCKIE-PRINS. A northern designation for a periwinkle.
BUCKLE. A mast buckles when it suffers by compression, so that the fibre takes a sinuous form, and the grain is upset. Also, in Polar regions, the bending or arching of the ice upwards, preceding a nip.
BUCKLERS. Two blocks of wood fitted together to stop the hawse-holes, leaving only sufficient space between them for the cable to pass, and thereby preventing the ship taking in much water in a heavy head-sea. They are either riding or blind bucklers (which see).
BUCKRA. A term for white man, used by the blacks in the West Indies, Southern States of America, and the African coast.
BUCK-WEEL. A bow-net for fish.
BUDE. An old name for the biscuit-weevil.
BUDGE-BARREL. A small cask with copper and wooden hoops, and one head formed by a leather hose or bag, drawing close by a string, for carrying powder in safety from sparks. In heraldry, the common bucket is called a water bouget or budget.
BUDGEROW. A cabined passage-boat of the Ganges and Hooghly.
BUFFET A BILLOW, To. To work against wind and tide.
BUG. An old term for a vessel more remarkable in size than efficiency. Thus, when Drake fell upon Cadiz, his sailors regarded the huge galleys opposed to them as mere "great bugges."
BUGALILO. A large trading-boat of the Gulf of Persia; the buglo of our seamen.
BUGAZEENS. An old commercial term for calicoes.
BUILD. A vessel's form or construction.
BUILD A CHAPEL, To. To turn a ship suddenly by negligent steerage.
BUILDER'S CERTIFICATE. A necessary document in admiralty courts, containing a true account of a ship's denomination, tonnage, trim, where built, and for whom.
BUILDING. The work of constructing ships, as distinguished from naval architecture, which may rather be considered as the art or theory of delineating ships on a plane. The pieces by which this complicated machine is framed, are joined together in various places by scarfing, rabbeting, tenanting, and scoring.
BUILT. A prefix to denote the construction of a vessel, as carvel or clinker-built, bluff-built, frigate-built, sharp-built, &c.; English, French, or American built, &c.
BUILT-BLOCK. Synonymous with made-block (which see). The lower masts of large ships are built or made.
BUILT-UP GUNS. Recently invented guns of great strength, specially adapted to meet the requirements of rifled artillery and of the attack of iron plating. They are usually composed of an inner core or barrel (which may be of coiled and welded iron, but is now generally preferred of tough steel), with a breech-piece, trunnion-piece, and various outer strengthening hoops or coils of wrought iron, shrunk or otherwise forced on; having their parts put together at such predetermined relative tensions, as to support one another under the shock of explosion, and thereby avoiding the faults of solid cast or forged guns, whereof the inner parts are liable to be destroyed before the outer can take their share of the strain. The first practical example of the method was afforded by the Armstrong gun, the "building up" which obtained in ancient days, before the casting of solid guns, having been apparently resorted to as an easy means of producing large masses of metal, without realizing the principle of the mutual support of the various parts.
BUIRAN. A Gaelic word signifying the sea coming in, with a noise as of the roar of a bull.
BULCH,
