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

ANTECEDENT OF A RATIO. The first of the two terms.

ANTECIANS. Those inhabitants of the earth who live under the same meridian, but in opposite hemispheres. (See [Antiscii].)

ANTE LUCAN. Before daylight.

ANTE MERIDIAN. Before noon.

ANTE MURAL. See [Outworks].

ANTHELION. A mock or spurious sun; a luminous meteor, resembling, but usually larger than, the solar disc.

ANTHRACITE. [Gr. anthrax and lithos.] A stone coal demanding great draught to burn, affording great heat, little smoke, and peculiarly adapted for steamers.

ANTICHTHONES. The inhabitants of countries diametrically opposite to each other.

ANTI-GALLICANS. A pair of extra backstays, sometimes used by merchantmen, to support the masts when running before the trades.

ANTI-GUGGLER. A straw, or crooked tube, introduced into a spirit cask or neck of a bottle, to suck out the contents; commonly used in 1800 to rob the captain's steward's hanging safe in hot climates. Is to be found in old dictionaries.