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

FRONTIER. The limits or borders of a country.

FRONT OF FORTIFICATION. The whole system of works included between the salient angles, or the capitals prolonged, of any two neighbouring bastions.

FROSTED STEEL. The damasked sword-blades.

FROST-FISH. A small fish, called also tommy-cod; in North America they are taken in large quantities in the depth of winter by fishing through holes cut in the ice.

FROST-RIME. See [Frost-smoke].

FROST-SMOKE. A thick mist in high latitudes, arising from the surface of the sea when exposed to a temperature much below freezing; when the vapours as they rise are condensed either into a thick fog, or, with the thermometer about zero, hug the water in eddying white wreaths. The latter beautiful form is called in North America a "barber," probably from its resemblance to soap-suds.

FROTH. See [Foam].

F.R.S. The sigla denoting a Fellow of the Royal Society.

FRUMENTARIÆ. The ancient vessels which supplied the Roman markets with corn.

FRUSH. A northern term for wood that is apt to splinter and break.