ADELANTADO. A lieutenant of the king of Spain, but used by old English writers for "admiral."
ADHESION. Consent to a proposal. Union or temporary cohesion; as, two vessels forced into adhesion by the pressure of the tide on their beam.
ADIT. A space in ancient ships, in the upper and broadest part, at which people entered. The adit of a military mine, is the aperture by which it is dug and charged: the name is also applied to an air-hole or drift.
ADJACENT. Lying close to another object; a word applied to the relative situations of capes or bays from the ship.—Adjacent angle is one immediately contiguous to another, so that they have one common side.
ADJOURN, To. To put off till another day. Adjournments can be made in courts-martial from day to day, Sundays excepted, until sentence is passed.
ADJUDICATION. The act of adjudging prizes by legal decree. Captors are compelled to submit the adjudication of their captures to a competent tribunal.
ADJUST, To. To arrange an instrument for use and observation; as, to adjust a sextant, or the escapement of a chronometer. To set the frame of a ship.
ADJUSTMENT. In marine insurance, the ascertaining and finally settling the amount of indemnity—whether of average or of salvage—which the insured (after all proper deductions have been made) is entitled to receive under the policy, when the ship is lost.
ADJUSTMENT OF THE COMPASS. Swinging a ship to every point of bearing, to note the variation or error of the needle upon each rhumb, due to the local attraction of the iron, or the mass, on each separate compass bearing. Thus, in lat. 76° N. it was found to be +22° 30′ with the head W.S.W., and -56° 30′ on the opposite bearing, or E.N.E.
ADJUTANT. [From Lat. adjuvo, to help.] A military assistant to field-officers. The term has been applied to an assistant captain of a fleet. It is indeed the duty performed by first lieutenants.