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

FLAUT. See [Flute].

FLAVER. An east-country term for froth or foam of surf.

FLAWS. Sudden gusts of wind, sometimes blowing with violence; whence Shakspeare in Coriolanus:

"Like a great sea-mark, standing every flaw."

But flaws also imply occasional fickle breezes in calm weather. Flaw is also used to express any crack in a gun or its carriage.

FLEACHES. Portions into which timber is cut by the saw.

FLEAK. See [Dutch Plaice].

FLEAM. A northern name for a water-course.

FLEAT, or Fleet. See [Fleeting].

FLEATE, To. To skim fresh water off the sea, as practised at the mouths of the Rhone, the Nile, &c. The word is derived from the Dutch vlieten, to skim milk; it also means to float. (See [Fleet].)