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

BERTHER. He who assigns places for the respective hammocks to hang in.

BERTHING. The rising or working up of the planks of a ship's sides; as berthing up a bulk-head, or bringing up in general. Berthing also denotes the planking outside, above the sheer-strake, and is called the berthing of the quarter-deck, of the poop, or of the forecastle, as the case may be.

BERTHING OF THE HEAD. See [Head-boards].

BERVIE. A haddock split and half-dried.

BERWICK SMACK. The old and well-found packets of former days, until superseded by steamers. (See [Barrack Smack].)

BESET IN ICE. Surrounded with ice, and no opening for advance or retreat, so as to be obliged to remain immovable.

BESIEGE, To. To endeavour to gain possession of a fortified place defended by an enemy, by directing against it a connected series of offensive military operations.

BESSY-LORCH. A northern name of the Gobio fluviatilis or gudgeon.

BEST BOWER. See [Bower-anchors].

BETELGUESE. The lucida of Orion, α Orionis, and a standard Greenwich star of the first magnitude.