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

HOLDING-ON. The act of pulling back the hind part of any rope.

HOLDING ON THE SLACK. Doing nothing. (See [Eyelids].)

HOLDING WATER. The act of checking the progress of a boat by holding the oar-blades in the water, and bearing the flat part strongly against the current alongside, so as to meet its resistance. (See [Back Astern], [Oar], and [Row].)

HOLD OFF. The keeping the hove-in part of a cable or hawser clear of the capstan.

HOLD ON. Keep all you have got in pulling a rope.—Hold on a minute. Wait or stop.—Hold on with your nails and eyelids. A derisive injunction to a timid climber.

HOLD ON, GOOD STICKS! An apostrophe often made when the masts complain in a fresh squall, or are over-pressed, and it is unadvisable to shorten sail.

HOLD-STANCHIONS. Those which support the hold-beams amidships, and rest on the kelson.

HOLD UP, To. In meteorological parlance, for the weather to clear up after a gale; to stop raining.

HOLE. A clear open space amongst ice in the Arctic seas.

HOLEBER. A kind of light horseman, who rode about from place to place in the night, to gain intelligence of the landing of boats, men, &c., on the Kentish coast.