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

BLEAK. The Leuciscus alburnus of naturalists, and the fresh-water sprat of Isaak Walton. The name of this fish is from the Anglo-Saxon blican, owing to its shining whiteness—its lustrous scales having long been used in the manufacture of false pearls.

BLEEDING THE MONKEY. The monkey is a tall pyramidal kid or bucket, which conveys the grog from the grog-tub to the mess—stealing from this in transitu is so termed.

BLEED THE BUOYS. To let the water out.

BLENNY. A small acanthopterygious fish (Blennius).

BLETHER-HEAD. A blockhead.

BLETHERING. Talking idle nonsense; insolent prate.

BLIND. A name on the west coast of Scotland for the pogge, or miller's thumb (Cottus cataphractus).

BLIND. Everything that covers besiegers from the enemy. (See [Orillon].)

BLINDAGE. A temporary wooden shelter faced with earth, both in siege works and in fortified places, against splinters of shells and the like.

BLIND-BUCKLERS. Those fitted for the hawse-holes, which have no aperture for the cable, and therefore used at sea to prevent the water coming in.