Search the Dictionary

the lee, or the side away from the wind; the opposite of aweather. The helm of a ship is alee when pressed close to the lee side. Hard alee, or Luff alee, an order to put the helm to the lee side.

Plates or blades of "whalebone," from two to twelve feet long, and sometimes a foot wide, which in certain whales (Balænoidea) are attached side by side along the upper jaw, and form a fringelike sieve by which the food is retained in the mouth.

The language spoken in Bengal.

A favorite soup in Scotland, made from a capon highly seasoned, and boiled with leeks and prunes.

One of several species of large, crested, Asiatic pheasants, belonging to the genus Euplocamus, and allied to the firebacks.

An extinct order of sea urchins found in the Paleozoic rocks. They had more than twenty vertical rows of plates. Called also Palæechini. [Written also Palæechinoidea.]

and water, sometimes used in the English navy or army. [Written also skilligolee, skillygalee, etc.]

With the sails furled, and the helm lashed alee; -- applied to ships in a storm. See Hull, n.

ather side, or toward the wind; in the direction from which the wind blows; -- opposed to alee; as, helm aweather ! Totten.

he Cetacea, including the right whale and all other whales having the mouth fringed with baleen. See Baleen.

The great Arctic or Greenland whale. (Balæna mysticetus). See Baleen, and Whale.

whales, having no true teeth after birth, but with a series of plates of whalebone [see Baleen.] hanging down from the upper jaw on each side, thus making a strainer, through which they receive the small animals upon which they feed. (b) The Denticete, including the dolphins and sperm whale, which have teeth. Another…

Same as Cockaleekie.

f the ship. -- Helm astarboard, when the tiller is borne to the starboard side. -- Helm alee, Helm aweather, when the tiller is borne over to the lee or to the weather side. -- Helm hard alee or hard aport, hard astarboard, etc., when the tiller is borne over to the extreme limit. -- Helm port, the round hole in a…

turn the tiller so as to make the vessel sail nearer the wind. To luff round, or To luff alee, to make the extreme of this movement, for the purpose of throwing the ship's head into the wind.

The velella; -- called also saleeman.

To move ahead by force of momentum, as a sailing vessel when the helm is put hard alee. To shoot ahead, to pass or move quickly forward; to outstrip others.

To change the direction of (a vessel) when sailing closehauled, by putting the helm alee and shifting the tacks and sails so that she will proceed to windward nearly at right angles to her former course.

To cause to go about, as a vessel, by putting the helm up, instead of alee as in tacking, so that the vessel's bow is turned away from, and her stern is presented to, the wind, and, as she turns still farther, her sails fill on the other side; to veer.

f which become nearly one hundred feet long. Whales are hunted chiefly for their oil and baleen, or whalebone.