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

ANEW. Enough, as relating to number.

ANGEL-FISH. The Squatina angelus, of the shark family. It inhabits the northern seas, is six or eight feet long, with a cinereous rough back and white smooth belly; the mouth is beneath the anterior part of the head, and the pectoral fins are very large. (Also, Chætodon.)

ANGEL-HEAD. The hook or barb of an arrow; probably angle-head.

ANGEL-SHOT. A ball cut in two, and the halves joined by a chain.

ANGIL. An old term for a fishing-hook [from the Anglo-Saxon ongul, for the same]. It means also a red worm used for a bait in angling or fishing.

ANGLE. The space or aperture intersected by the natural inclination of two lines or planes meeting each other, the place of intersection being called the vertex or angular point, and the lines legs. Angles are distinguished by the number of degrees they subtend, to 360°, or the whole circumference of a circle. Angles are [acute], [obtuse], [right], [curvilinear], [rectilinear], &c. (all of which see).

ANGLE-DOG, or Angle-twitch. A large earth-worm, sought for bait.

ANGLE-IRONS. Certain strips of iron having their edges turned up at an angle to each other; they are of various sizes, and used for the ribs and knees of the framing of iron vessels.

ANGLE OF COMMUTATION. The difference between the heliocentric longitudes of the earth and a planet or comet, the latter being reduced to the ecliptic.

ANGLE OF ECCENTRICITY. An astronomical term denoting the angle whose sine is equal to the eccentricity of an orbit.