SAILOR'S PLEASURE. A rather hyperbolic phrase for a sailor's overhauling his ditty-bag at a leisure moment, and restowing his little hoard.
SAILS, To Loose. To unfurl them, and let them hang loose to dry; or the movement preparatory to "making sail."—To make sail, to spread the sails to the wind in order to begin the action of sailing, or to increase a ship's speed.—To shorten sail, to take in part of or all the sails, either by reefing or furling, or both.—To strike sail, to lower the upper sails. A gracious mode of salute on passing a foreigner at sea, especially a superior.
SAINT CUTHBERT'S DUCK. The Anas mollissima; the eider, or great black and white duck of the Farne Islands.
SAINT ELMO'S LIGHT. See [Compasant].
SAINT SWITHIN. The old notion is, that if it should rain on this bishop's day, the 15th of July, not one of forty days following will be without a shower.
SAKER. A very old gun, 8 or 9 feet long, and of about 5 lbs. calibre: immortalized in Hudibras:—
"The cannon, blunderbuss, and saker,
He was th' inventer of, and maker."
The name is thought to have been derived from the French oath sacre.
SALADE. An Anglo-Norman term for a light helmet or head-piece.
SALADIN. The first coat-of-arms; so called because the crusaders assumed it in imitation of the Saracens, whose chief at that time was the redoubtable Saladin.