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

CREOLE. This term applies in the West Indies and Spanish America, &c., to a person of European and unmixed origin, but colonial born.

CREPUSCULUM. See [Twilight].

CRESPIE. A northern term for a small whale or a grampus.

CRESSET. A beacon light set on a watch-tower.

CRESSIT. A small crease or dagger.

CREST. The highest part of a mountain, or range of mountains, and the summit of a sea-wave.

CREW. Comprehends every officer and man on board ship, borne as complement on the books. There are in ships of war several particular crews or gangs, as the gunner's, carpenter's, sail-maker's, blacksmith's, armourer's, and cooper's crews.

CRIB. A small berth in a packet.

CRICK. A small jack-screw.

CRIMPS. Detested agents who trepan seamen, by treating, advancing money, &c., by which the dupes become indebted, and when well plied with liquor are induced to sign articles, and are shipped off, only discovering their mistake on finding themselves at sea robbed of all they possessed.