Search the Dictionary

One of a pair of horizontal rails or timbers for supporting anything, as a boat, a barrel, etc.

A small, light boat. The pilot of some small night-foundered skiff. Milton. Skiff caterpillar (Zoöl.), the larva of a moth (Limacodes scapha); -- so called from its peculiar shape.

A shallow sailboat with a rectilinear or V-shaped cross section.

A small boat; a skiff. [Obs.] A little skippet floating did appear. Spenser.

Any jager gull; especially, the Megalestris skua; -- called also boatswain.

A boat; a small vessel. [Obs.] Sir R. Williams.

othly or unobservedly; to move gently onward without friction or hindrance; as, a ship or boat slides through the water. Ages shall slide away without perceiving. Dryden. Parts answering parts shall slide into a whole. Pope.

m. -- Slipper flower.(Bot.) Slipperwort. -- Slipper limpet, or Slipper shell (Zoöl.), a boat shell.

schooner, and mounting from ten to thirty-two guns; now, any war vessel larger than a gunboat, and carrying guns on one deck only.

ad and lime, with which the bright parts of machines, such as the connecting rods of steamboats, are painted to be preserved from oxidation.

of a river or other navigable water, and rising nearly or quite to the surface, by which boats are sometimes pierced and sunk.

yards in vessels of war; also, the short line supporting the heel of the sprit in a small boat.

-- Socket pole, a pole armed with iron fixed on by means of a socket, and used to propel boats, etc. [U.S.] -- Socket wrench, a wrench consisting of a socket at the end of a shank or rod, for turning a nut, bolthead, etc., in a narrow or deep recess.

loss, in honor and dishonor, in victory and defeat, a being, so to speak, all in the same boat. Trench. The solidarity . . . of Breton and Welsh poetry. M. Arnold.

the sail area, not more than 550 square yards; and the cost of construction (for American boats) not more than $2400. The crew must be amateurs and citizens of the country in which the yacht was built.

iron (Naut.), a special kind of harpoon, usually secured just below the gunwale of a whaleboat. -- Span roof, a common roof, having two slopes and one ridge, with eaves on both sides. Gwilt. -- Span shackle (Naut.), a large bolt driven through the forecastle deck, with a triangular shackle in the head to receive the…

One of the triangular platforms in front of, and abaft, the paddle boxes of a steamboat.

A small boom, pole, or spar, which crosses the sail of a boat diagonally from the mast to the upper aftmost corner, which it is used to extend and elevate.

A flood gate by which water is accumulated, for floating a boat over a shallow part of a stream by its release. Knight.

es of; to break a hole in; to burst; -- often with in; as, to stave a cask; to stave in a boat.