ABROAD. Synonymous with foreign, or being on a foreign station. Also an old word for spread; as, all sail abroad.
ABRUPT. A word applied to steep, broken, or craggy cliffs and headlands, especially such as are bold-to and precipitous.
ABSCISS. A part either of the diameter or the transverse axis of a conic section, intercepted between the vertex or any other fixed point and a semi-ordinate.—Abscission of a planet, its being outstripped by another, which joins a third one before it.
ABSENCE. A permission occasionally obtained, on urgent affairs, by officers to quit their duties.
ABSOLUTE. Anything free from conditions.—Absolute equations, the sum of the optic and eccentric equation, or the anomalies arising from a planet's not being equally distant from the earth at all times, and its motion not being uniform.—Absolute gravity is the whole force with which a body tends downwards.
ABSORPTION. A term formerly used for the sinking of islands and tracts of land, instead of subsidence.
ABSQUATULATE. See [Squatter].
ABSTRACT. A brief register of the warrant officer's stores, by which the supplies, expenses, and remains are duly balanced. An abstract log contains the most important subjects of a ship's log.
ABSTRACT MATHEMATICS, or Pure. The branch which investigates and demonstrates the properties of magnitude, figure, or quantity, absolutely and generally considered, without restriction to any species in particular; such as arithmetic and geometry.
A-BURTON. The situation of casks when they are stowed in the hold athwart ship, or in a line with the beam.