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

PICCARY. Piratical theft on a small scale.

PICKERIE. An old word for stealing; under which name the crime was punishable by severe duckings.

PICKET. A pointed staff or stake driven into the ground for various military purposes, as the marking out plans of works, the securing horses to, &c. (See also [Piquet], an outguard.)

PICKETS. Two pointers for a mortar, showing the direction of the object to be fired at, though it be invisible from the piece.

PICKLE-HARIN. A sea-sprite, borrowed from the Teutonic.

PICKLING. A mode of salting naval timber in our dockyards, to insure its durability. (See [Burnettize].)

PICK UP A WIND, To. Traverses made by oceanic voyagers; to run from one trade or prevalent wind to another, with as little intervening calm as possible.

PICTARNIE. A name on our northern coasts for the Sterna hirundo, the tern, or sea-swallow.

PICUL. See [Pekul].

PIE. The beam or pole that is erected to support the gun for loading and unloading timber. Also called pie-tree.