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

TALARO. A silver coin of Ragusa, value 3s. sterling: also of Venice, value 4s. 2d.

TALE [from Anglo-Saxon tael, number]. Taylor thus expressed it in 1630—

"Goods in and out, which daily ships doe fraight
By guesse, by tale, by measure, and by weight."

TALLANT. The upper hance, or break of the rudder abaft.

TALL SHIP. A phrase among the early voyagers for square-rigged vessels having top-masts.

TALLY, To. To haul the sheets aft; as used by Falconer—

"And while the lee clue-garnet's lower'd away,
Taut aft the sheet they tally, and belay."

TALUS. The old word in fortification for slope.

TAMBOUR. A projecting kind of stockade, attached to ill-flanked walls, &c.

TAN AND TANNED SAILS. Those steeped in oak-bark.