The Sailor's Word-Book / An Alphabetical Digest of Nautical Terms, including Some More Especially Military and Scientific, but Useful to Seamen; as well as Archaisms of Early Voyagers, etc.

by W. H. Smyth

SEA-HEN. A name of the fish Trigla lyra, or [crooner] (which see).

SEA-HOG. A common name for the porpoise, Phocœna communis.

SEA-HORSE. A name for the walrus, Trichecus rosmarus. Also, the [hippocampus] (which see).

SEA-ICE. Ice within which there is a separation from the land.

SEAL [from the Anglo-Saxon seolh]. The well-known marine piscivorous animal.

SEA-LAKE. Synonymous with [lagoon] (which see).

SEA-LAWS. The codes relating to the sea; as, the laws of Rhodes, Oleron, Wisbuy, &c.

SEA-LAWYER. An idle litigious 'longshorer, more given to question orders than to obey them. One of the pests of the navy as well as of the mercantile marine. Also, a name given to the tiger-shark.

SEALED ORDERS. Secret and sealed until the circumstances arise which authorize their being opened and acted on. Often given to prevent officers from divulging the point to which they are ordered.

SEA-LEGS. Implies the power to walk steadily on a ship's decks, notwithstanding her pitching or rolling.