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

NAB. The bolt-toe, or cock of a gun-lock.

NABB. A cant term for the head. Also, a protuberance on the rocky summit of a hill; a rocky ledge below water.

NACA, or Nacelle. A French boat without mast or sail, used as early as the twelfth century.

NACRE. The mother-of-pearl which lines some shells, both univalve and bivalve.

NACTA. A small transport vessel of early times.

NADIR. The lower pole of the rational horizon, the other being the zenith.

NAID. A northern term for a lamprey, or large eel.

NAIL, To. Is colloquially used for binding a person to a bargain. In weighing articles of food, a nail is 8 lbs.

NAILING A GUN. Synonymous with cloying or spiking. When necessary to abandon cannon, or when the enemy's artillery, though seized, cannot be taken away, it is proper to spike it, which is done by driving a steel or other spike into the vent. The best method sometimes to render a gun serviceable again is to drill a new vent. (See [Spiking].)

NAILS OF SORTS. Nails used in carpentry under the denominations of 4, 6, 8, 10, 24, 30, and 40 penny-nails, all of different lengths.