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

LEAK [Anglo-Saxon leccinc]. A chink in the deck, sides, or bottom of a ship, through which the water gets into her hull. When a leak begins, a vessel is said to have sprung a leak.

LEAKAGE. Loss by the act of leaking out of a cask. Also, an allowance of 12 per cent., to merchants importing wine, by the customs.

LEAKIES. Certain irregularities of tide in the Firth of Forth.

LEAKY. The state of a ship admitting water, and a cask or other vessel letting out its contents.

LEAN. Used in the same sense as clean or sharp; the reverse of full or bluff in the form of a ship.

LEAN-BOW. Having a sharp entrance; a thin narrow bow being opposed to bold bow. Fine forward, very fine is lean as a lizard.

LEAP. The sudden fall of a river in one sheet. Also, a weel, made of twigs, to catch fish in.

LEAPER. See [Lipper].

LEAT. A canal leading from a pool to a mill-course.

LEATHAG. A Celtic name for the plaice or flounder.