MARQUEE. An officer's oblong tent; has two poles, and curtains all round; it is often assigned to various staff purposes.
MARROT. A name for the guillemot.
MARRY, To, the Ropes, Braces, or Falls. To hold both together, and by pressure haul in both equally. Also so to join the ends of two ropes, that they will pass through a block.
MARS. One of the ancient superior planets, the next to the earth in order of distance from the sun.
MARSH [Anglo-Saxon mersc, a fen]. Low land often under water, and producing aquatic vegetation. Those levels near the sea coast are usually saturated with salt water.
MARSILIANA. A Venetian ship of burden, square-sterned.
MART. A commercial market. Also a colloquialism for marque, as a letter of mart or marque.
MARTELLO TOWER. So named from a tower in the Bay of Mortella, in Corsica, which, in 1794, maintained a very determined resistance against the English. A martello tower at the entrance of the bay of Gaeta beat off H.M.S. Pompée, of 80 guns. A martello is built circular, and thus difficult to hit, with walls of vast thickness, pierced by loop-holes, and the bomb-proof roof is armed with one heavy traversing gun. They are 30 to 40 feet high, surrounded by a dry fosse, and the entrance is by a ladder at a door several feet from the ground.
MARTIAL LAW. The law of war, obtaining between hostile forces, or proclaimed in rebellious districts; it rests mainly on necessity, custom in like cases, and the will of the commander of the forces; thus differing from [military law] (which see). Martial law is proclaimed when the civil law is found to be insufficient to preserve the peace; in the case of insurrection, mutiny, &c., the will and judgment of the officer in command becomes law.
MARTIN. A cat-sized creature with a valuable fur imported from Hudson's Bay and Canada in prodigious numbers.—"My eye and Betty Martin," is a common expression implying disbelief; a corruption of the Romish mihi, beate Martine!