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

SKEGG-SHORES. Stout pieces of plank put up endways under the skegg of the ship, to steady the after-part when in the act of being launched.

SKELDRYKE. An old term for a small passage-boat in the north.

SKELETON OF A REGIMENT. Its principal officers and staff.

SKELLY. The Leuciscus cephalus, or chub. In the northern lakes it is often called the fresh-water herring.

SKELP, To. To slap with the open hand: an old word, said to have been imported from Iceland:—

"I canno' tell a';
Some gat a skelp, and some gat a claw."

SKENE, or Skain. A crooked sword formerly used by the Irish.

SKENY. A northern term to express an insulated rock.

SKER, or Skerry. A flat insulated rock, but not subject to the overflowing of the sea: thus we have "the Skerries" in Wales, the Channel Islands, &c.

SKEW. Awry, oblique; as a skew bridge, skew angle, &c. Also, in Cornwall, drizzling rain. Also, a rude-fashioned boat.