Lowtide
Ma r i t i M e tr i v i a
Among nautical terms that the The word peninsula is from the
English borrowed from the Dutch are
By Br y a n He n r y
Latin paene insula, meaning “almost
brackish, cruise, deck, dock, freebooter, an island”. Since the sixteenth century
harpoon, hoist, mesh (net), reef, school it has referred not only to land almost
(of fish), schooner, skipper, sloop, tackle, The original meaning of torpedo was surrounded by water but also to a land
trawl, yacht and walrus. an electric ray, a fish that produces an mass of which three or four sides are
electric discharge to stun prey or defend coastline.
The word skylark comes from against predators. It was first applied
lark, which is derived from the Anglo- to instruments of war in the nineteenth The word atlas was first used in 1595
Saxon lac which means “play” or “fun”. century. when Dutch mapmaker and geographer
Skylarking comes from the sailors’ Gerard Mercator published a collection
custom of mounting the highest yards of The trade winds got their name from of maps in a book with a depiction of
sailing vessels - known as skyscrapers - the Old German trata, meaning “track”. Atlas on the front page. That’s why a
and sliding down them. The trade winds follow a uniform track. book of maps is called an atlas today.
The word nausea entered the
English lexicon in the sixteenth century
from the Greek naus, meaning “ship”.
Nausia meant seasickness. In Latin it
developed into navis, “ship”, the source
of other such English words as naval and
navigator.
Poorly built structures came to be
called jerry-built from “jury”, Old French
ajurie, meaning “relief”. So a “jury mast”
or “jury rig” was a temporary mast or
rigging set up when a ship’s regular mast
and rigging have been taken away by a
storm. Something jerry-built is not built
to last.
The word quarantine is from the
Italian quaranta, meaning “forty”. A ship
suspected of being infected with some
contagious disease was kept outside of
port for forty days - in quarantine.
The words admiral and emir came
from the same source, the Arabic word
“amir”, meaning “commander”. Admiral
came into English in the 16th century,
emir in the 17th century.
The word garage, as in to store a car,
was first recorded in 1802 as “a place
where one docks”, then later as “to
moor a boat”.
The slang expression “hard up”,
meaning one who cannot face a
financial upheaval and must turn away,
was originally a nautical term. To put the
helm hard up is to put it as far as possible
to windward in order to turn the ship’s
head away from the wind.
48° No r t h , oc t o b e r 2009 Pa g e 24
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