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

PAVILLON [Fr.] Colours; flag; standard.

PAVISER. Formerly a soldier who was armed with a pavise or buckler.

PAWK. A young lobster.

PAWL. See [Pauls].

PAY. A buccaneering principle of hire, under the notion of plunder and sharing in prizes, was, no purchase no pay.

PAY, To [from Fr. poix, pitch]. To pay a seam is to pour hot pitch and tar into it after caulking, to defend the oakum from the wet. Also, to beat or drub a person, a sense known to Shakspeare as well as to seamen.

PAY A MAST OR YARD, To. To anoint it with tar, turpentine, rosin, tallow, or varnish; tallow is particularly useful for those masts upon which the sails are frequently hoisted and lowered, such as top-masts and the lower masts of sloops, schooners, &c.

PAY A VESSEL'S BOTTOM, To. To cover it with tallow, sulphur, rosin, &c. (See [Breaming].)

PAY AWAY. The same as [paying out] (which see). To pass out the slack of a cable or rope.—Pay down. Send chests or heavy articles below.

PAYING OFF. The movement by which a ship's head falls off from the wind, and drops to leeward. Also, the paying off the ship's officers and crew, and the removal of the ship from active service to ordinary.