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

SKART. A name of the cormorant in the Hebrides.

SKATE. A well-known cartilaginous fish of the ray family, Raia batis.

SKATE-LURKER. A cant word for a begging impostor dressed as a sailor.

SKEDADDLE, To. To stray wilfully from a watering or a working party. An archaism retained by the Americans.

SKEDDAN. The Manx or Erse term for herrings.

SKEEL. A cylindrical wooden bucket. A large water-kid.

SKEER, or Scar. A place where cockles are gathered. (See [Scar].)

SKEET. A long scoop used to wet the sides of the ship, to prevent their splitting by the heat of the sun. It is also employed in small vessels for wetting the sails, to render them more efficacious in light breezes; this in large ships is done by the fire engine.

SKEE-TACK. A northern name for the cuttle-fish.

SKEGG. A small and slender part of the keel of a ship, cut slanting, and left a little without the stern-post; not much used now, owing to its catching hawsers, and occasioning dead water. The after-part of the keel itself is also called the skegg.