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

DRAGGING ON HER. Said of a vessel in chase, or rounding a point, when she is obliged to carry more canvas to a fresh wind than she otherwise would.

DRAG-NET. A trawl or net to draw on the bottom for flat-fish.

DRAGOMAN. The name for a Turkish interpreter; it is corrupted from tarij-mân.

DRAGON. An old name for a musketoon.

DRAGON BEAM or Piece. A strut or abutment.

DRAGONET. A sea-fish, the gowdie, or Callionymus lyra.

DRAGON-VOLANT. The old name for a gun of large calibre used in the French navy, whence the term was adopted into ours.

DRAGOON. Originally a soldier trained to serve alike on horse or foot, or as Dr. Johnson equivocally explains it, "who fights indifferently on foot or on horseback." (See [Troop].) The term is now applied to all cavalry soldiers who have no other special designation.

DRAG-ROPES. Those used in the artillery by the men in pulling the gun backwards and forwards in practice and in action.

DRAGS. Whatever hangs over the ship into the sea, as shirts, coats, or the like; and boats when towed, or whatever else that after this manner may hinder the ship's way when she sails, are called drags.