Naming the Planets, Part 2

18 November 2005

A question to the Wordorigins.org discussion forum a week or so ago asked about the origins of the names of the planets. The "official" names of objects in the solar system are assigned by the International Astronomical Union (IAU), a global association of astronomers. The IAU follows several conventions in naming planets and moons, the main ones being that planets are given names of Roman mythological beings and moons are given Greek mythological names associated with the Greek equivalent of the Roman god. Many of these names did not originate with the IAU, but have borne the names of these deities dating back into antiquity. There are exceptions to the IAU naming conventions. Shakespearean names are assigned to moons of Uranus and the occasional Norse or Inuit mythological name appears here and there.

Here is the second half of our examination of the names of the planets and moons.

Saturn, the sixth planet from the sun and the second largest, is named after the king of the Titans, the father of Jupiter. Saturn’s Greek counterpart is Cronos. English use of Saturn as the planetary name dates back to Old English. The adjective is Saturnian, 1557.

Like Jupiter, Saturn has many satellites. The Saturnian moons tend to be named after Titans from myth, although there are many exceptions:

• Pan, named after the Greek god of nature. Discovered by astronomer Mark Showalter in 1990 from Voyager photos.

• Atlas, after the Titan condemned to support the heavens on his shoulders. Discovered by Richard Terrile in 1980 from Voyager photos

• Prometheus, Greek for foresight, after the Titan who gave fire to man. Discovered by S. Collins in 1980 from Voyager photos

• Pandora, after the first woman in Greek mythology. Discovered by Collins in 1980 from Voyager photos.

• Epimetheus, Greek for hindsight, brother of Prometheus. This moon was first observed by Walker in 1966, but was confused with Janus (see next). In 1977, Fountain and Larson demonstrated they were separate objects.

• Janus, after the Roman god of doorways. Discovered by either Walker or Audoin Dolfus in 1966. Dolfus sighted it a few hours before Walker, but it is uncertain whether Dolfus saw Janus or Epimetheus

• Mimas, after a Titan slain by Hercules. Discovered by William Herschel in 1789.

• Enceladas, after a Titan slain by Athena. Discovered by Herschel in 1789

• Tethys, after a Titaness and sea goddess. First seen by Giovanni Cassini in 1684.

• Telesto, after the daughter of Tethys. Discovered by Smith, Reitsma, Larson and Fountain in 1980.

• Calypso, after the sea nymph who delayed Odysseus for seven years. Discovered by Pascu, Seidelmann, Baum, and Currie in 1980

• Dione, after the mother of Aphrodite. Spotted by Cassini in 1684

• Rhea, after the sister and wife of Cronus, the mother of Zeus. Discovered by Cassini in 1672.

• Titan, the largest of the Saturnian satellites, is named after the family of giants overthrown by Zeus. Christiaan Huygens discovered this moon in 1655.

• Hyperion, after a Titan. Discovered by William Bond and William Lassell in 1848.

• Iapetus, a Titan, the father of Prometheus and Atlas. Discovered by Cassini in 1671.

• Phoebe, after the daughter of Uranus and Gaia. Discovered by William Pickering in 1898.

• Several Saturnian moons, discovered in 2000, were given names by IAU in 2004, Norse, Gallic, and Inuit names represent satellites in three different inclination groups
  

  • Ymir, Norse giant

  • Paaliaq, Inuit giant

  • Tarvos, Gallic giant

  • Ijiraq, Inuit giant

  • Suttungr, Norse giant

  • Kiviuq, Inuit giant

  • Mundilfari, Norse giant

  • Albiorix, Gallic giant

  • Skathi, Norse giantess

  • Erriapo, Gallic giant

  • Siarnaq, Inuit giant

  • Thrymr, Norse giant

Uranus, named after the Greek deity of the heavens, husband of Gaia and father of Cronus, is the seventh planet and the first to be discovered in modern times. It was first sighted by Herschel in 1781. Herschel named it the Georgium sidus (the Georgian planet) in honor of King George III. The name Uranus was proposed by Johann Bode sometime before 1802. The adjective is Uranian, 1844.

Uranian moons follow a different naming convention than most objects in the solar system. Instead of being named after characters in Greco-Roman myth, they are named after Shakespearian characters:

• Cordelia, after King Lear’s daughter. Discovered by Voyager 2 in 1986.

• Ophelia, after Polonius’ daughter from Hamlet. Discovered by Voyager 2 in 1986.

• Bianca, after Katherine’s sister in The Taming of the Shrew. Discovered by Voyager 2 in 1986.

• Cressida, after the title character in Troilus and Cressida. Discovered by Voyager 2 in 1986.

• Desdemona, after Othello’s wife. Discovered by Voyager 2 in 1986.

• Juliet, after the heroine of Romeo and Juliet. Discovered by Voyager 2 in 1986.

• Portia, after a character in Merchant of Venice. Discovered by Voyager 2 in 1986.

• Rosalind, after a character in As You Like It. Discovered by Voyager 2 in 1986.

• Belinda, taking a break from the Bard, this moon is named after a character in Pope’s The Rape of the Lock. Discovered by Voyager 2 in 1986.

• Puck, after the fairy in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Discovered by Voyager 2 in 1986.

• Miranda is the innermost of the Uranian large moons and is named after a character in The Tempest. Discovered by Gerard Kuiper in 1948.

• Ariel, named after a spirit in The Tempest, was discovered by William Lassell in 1851.

• Umbriel is another Uranian moon that is not named after a Shakespearian character. Again, the name is from The Rape of the Lock. Discovered by Lassell in 1851.

• Titania was queen of the fairies in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. It was discovered by Herschel in 1787.

• Oberon, was king of the fairies and husband to Titania. It was also discovered by Herschel in 1787.

• Caliban, Sycorax, Trinculo, Prospero, Setebos, and Stephano, were all discovered in the late 1990s and named after characters in The Tempest.

• Several other moons of Uranus have been discovered, but have yet to be named.

The eighth, and some would say last, planet is Neptune, named for the Roman god of the sea. It was discovered by Johann Galle and Heinrich d’Arrest in 1846, although Galileo had seen in 1613, but mistook it for a star. Due to Pluto’s highly eccentric orbit, Neptune is sometimes the outermost planet. The adjective is Neptunian, 1849.

As one might expect for a planet named after the god of the sea, Neptunian moons all have a watery flavor to their names:

• Naiad, named after type of water nymph, was discovered in 1989 by Voyager 2.

• Thalassa, named after the Greek personification of the sea, another name for Tethys (see Saturnian moons), was also discovered in 1989 by Voyager 2.

• Despina, a third moon found in 1989 by Voyager 2, is named after a nymph, the daughter of Poseidon, 1989 by Voyager 2.

• Galatea is named for the daughter of the cyclops Polyphemus, a granddaughter of Poseidon, not after the statue of the same name carved by Pygmalian that came to life. It, too, was discovered in 1989 by Voyager 2.

• Larissa, is named after the daughter of Pelasgus. No specific myths connected with her. It is yet another Voyager 2 moon.

• Proteus, is named after the shape-changing sea-god, the sixth and last moon discovered by Voyager 2 in 1989.

• Triton, is the only large moon of Neptune. It is named after a god of the sea, the son of Poseidon. It was discovered in 1846 by Lassell.

• Nereid, the name for the fifty daughters of the Titan Nereus, was found in 1949 by Kuiper.

Pluto was discovered in 1930 by Clyde Tombaugh and named after the Roman god of the underworld. Astronomers are currently debating whether Pluto should be classified as a planet because of its small size and its orbit that is inclined outside the plane of the other planets. Pluto has three moons, one named. Charon, discovered in 1978 by Jim Christy, is named after the ferryman who takes departed souls over the river Acheron into Hades

The recently discovered Sedna is so far out, more than twice as far from the sun as Pluto, that its orbital period is 10,500 years. Slightly smaller than Pluto, Sedna was discovered in 2004 and named after the Inuit goddess of the sea. Given the controversy over Pluto’s planetary status, it is unlikely that Sedna will be classified as a planet.

In June of this year, astronomers Mike Brown, Chad Trujillo, and David Rabinowitz announced the discovery of the tenth planet. The planet currently has a designation of 2003 UB313. A permanent name has been proposed and is under review by the IAU, but what that is and whether the IAU will accept it is unknown. Little is known about 2003 UB313, although it is definitely bigger than Pluto—the best guess puts it at about 125% of Pluto’s size or somewhat larger than Triton. 2003 UB313 orbits the sun at a distance of 97 astronomical units, making it the most distant object known to orbit the sun. (Earth orbits at one astronomical unit; Pluto is at about 40, and Sedna is at 90.) In September, a moon orbiting 2003 UB313 was found.

Hypothetical Objects

Over the years, the existence of various objects in the solar system have been postulated but never found to actually exist. Here are some that went so far as to have (unsanctioned by the IAU) names.

Vulcan was the name of a planet believed, based on perturbations in Mercury’s orbit, to orbit between the sun and Mercury. It was named by Urbain Le Verrier in 1859 after the Roman blacksmith god. In 1916, Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity explained Mercury’s orbital oddities without need for Vulcan to exist. In 1970-71, the belief in Vulcan was temporarily revived when astronomers observed some faint objects within Mercury’s orbit, but these turned out to be comets passing close by or striking the sun.

Neith is a supposed moon of Venus. It was first "sighted" by Cassini in 1672. It was "seen" by several astronomers between that year and 1892. Controversial because not all who looked for it saw it, Neith is now known not to exist and the "sightings" were confusions with stars and other objects. Neith was the Egyptian goddess of war and the hunt.

Themis is a supposed moon of Saturn. "Sighted" by Pickering in 1905, it remained in some almanacs into the 1960s. Themis was a Titan, the mother of the three Fates.

Nemesis is a faint star believed by some to be the Sun’s binary companion at a distance of about 1.4 light years. According to those who believe in its existence, every 30 million years Nemesis comes close enough to disturb the Oort cloud, sending a shower of comets into the inner solar system and causing impacts on Earth and the other planets. The alleged star was named in 1984 after the Greek goddess of retribution. No firm evidence for the existence of Nemesis has ever been presented and its existence is highly doubtful.

Naming the Planets, Part 1

11 November 2005

A question to the Wordorigins.org discussion forum this past week asked about the origins of the names of the planets. The "official" names of objects in the solar system are assigned by the International Astronomical Union (IAU), a global association of astronomers.

The IAU follows several conventions in naming planets and moons, the main ones being that planets are given names of Roman mythological beings and moons are given Greek mythological names associated with the Greek equivalent of the Roman god. Moons tend be named after goddesses, while planets, with the exception of Venus, are all male gods. Many of these names did not originate with the IAU, but have borne the names of these deities dating back into antiquity. The naming conventions are not rigid and there are exceptions. For example, Shakespearean names are assigned to moons of Uranus and in recent years the occasional Norse or Inuit mythological name has been assigned to newly discovered objects.

The largest and central object in the solar system is the sun, the nearest star to the Earth. Sun is an Old English word from a common Germanic root. Our local star is also known as Sol, the Latin name, which has been in English use since c.1450. The associated adjective is solar. Helio-, after helios, the Greek name for the sun, has been used as a combining form, as in heliocentric, since 1804.

Mercury, the planet closest to the sun and the fastest to orbit, is named after the Roman messenger god. The name in English usage dates back to Old English. The adjective is Mercurian, c.1576. The ancient Greeks called the planet by two names, even though they knew it to be one object, Apollo when seen in the morning and Hermes, the Greek counterpart to the Roman god, when seen in the evening.

Venus, the second planet from the sun and Earth’s nearest neighbor, is named after the Roman goddess of love. English usage of the name dates to c.1290. The adjective is Venusian, 1874. Early uses of the adjectival form are primarily found in science fiction, with astronomical use dating from 1913. The ancient Greeks called it by two names, Eosphorus, morning star, and Hesperus, evening star, although, like Mercury, they knew it was one body.

Earth dates back to Old English and is from a common Germanic root. The root is probably related to the Greek era, but no other non-Germanic cognates are known and the exact relationship with the Greek word is uncertain. Earth was not used in the sense of a planet, like the others, until c.1400. The adjective is Terran, 1953, and is most commonly found in science fiction. The adjective is after Terra, the Latin name for earth.

The earth is the first planet to have a natural satellite, called the moon. The word is found in Old English, from a common Germanic root. Moon has been used to denote a satellite of a planet other than earth since 1665. The earth’s moon is sometimes known as Luna, the Latin name in English use since before 1529. The adjective is lunar, 1626. Unlike the other astronomical names, earth and moon are often not capitalized.

Mars, the fourth planet from the sun, is named after the Roman god of war. The name has been in English use since c.1300. The adjective is Martian, c.1395. Mars has two small satellites, Phobos (fear) and Deimos (panic), the names of Ares’ sons, Ares being the Greek counterpart to the Roman diety.

Between Mars and Jupiter are the asteroids, named by astronomer William Herschel in 1802, from the Greek aster (star) + -oid (like). There are probably over a million of these rocks, of which several hundred thousand have been given alphanumeric designations by the IAU. Some asteroids are named. The largest is Ceres, after the Greek god of agriculture. At 933 km in diameter, Ceres contains 25% of the mass of all the asteroids combined.

Jupiter is the fifth and largest planet, named after the Roman king of the gods. The astronomical name has been in English use since c.1290. The planet is sometimes called Jove, c.1374, the poetical name of Jupiter. The adjective is Jovian, 1794

Most of Jupiter’s moons are named after paramours of Zeus, the Greek equivalent to the Roman god. It is well that Zeus enjoyed the ladies, because Jupiter has 27 moons. The Jovian moons are:

• Metis, after first wife of Zeus, discovered in 1979 by astronomer Stephen Synnott of the Voyager 1 project.

• Adrastea, a daughter of Jupiter, discovered in 1979 by David Jewett of the Voyager 1 project.

• Amalthea, the nymph who nursed Jupiter, discovered by Edward Barnard in 1892.

• Thebe, nymph daughter of river god Asopus, discovered in 1979 by Synnott.

• Io is the innermost of the Galilean moons, so-called because they were independently discovered by Galileo the German astronomer Simon Marius in 1610. Named after a lover of Zeus who was turned into a heifer to hide her from Hera, his jealous wife, Marius named this and all the Galilean moons.

• Europa, was another lover of Zeus, is the next Galilean moon.

• Ganymede, the largest moon in the solar system, has a diameter larger than Mercury although smaller than that planet in mass. It is named for the Trojan boy who, because of his beauty, was made cupbearer to the gods.

• Callisto is named after a nymph lover of Zeus who was turned into a bear by Hera. In the myth, Zeus placed her in the sky as the constellation Ursa Major. Callisto is the outermost of the Galilean moons.

• Leda is the smallest of Jovian satellites. It is named for the queen of Sparta, who was the mother of Polydeuces (Pollux) and Helen of Troy by Zeus and of Castor and Clytemnestra by her mortal husband. Astronomer Charles Kowal discovered the moon in 1974. Leda and the next three satellites may be the remains of an asteroid captured by Jupiter and broken up.

• Himalia is named for the mother of three of Zeus’ children. It was discovered by Charles Perrine in 1904.

• Lysithea was another lover of Zeus. The satellite was discovered by Seth Nicolson in 1938.

• Elara, was a lover of Zeus. Discovered by Perrine in 1904

• Ananke, was yet another lover of Zeus, the mother of Adrastea. Nicolson discovered this one in 1951

• Carme was also discovered by Nicolson, but in 1938. It was named for a lover of Zeus, of course.

• Pasiphae was the wife of King Minos of Crete and mother of the Minotaur. It was discovered by Philibert Melotte in 1908

• Even Zeus occasionally struck out. Sinope was a woman who spurned the god’s advances. Nicolson discovered this one too in 1914

• Eleven small moons, recently discovered, were given names by IAU in 2004, a mix of daughters and lovers of the god:
  

  • Callirrhoe, stepdaughter

  • Themisto, lover

  • Megaclite, lover

  • Taygete, lover

  • Chaldene, lover

  • Harpalyke, lover

  • Kalyke, lover

  • Iocaste, lover

  • Erinome, lover

  • Isonoe, lover

  • Praxidike, lover

  • Autonoe, lover

  • Thyone, lover

  • Hermippe, lover

  • Aitne, lover

  • Eurydome, lover

  • Euanthe, lover

  • Euporie, daughter

  • Orthosie, daughter

  • Sponde, daughter

  • Kale, daughter

  • Pasithee, daughter

Our look at the names of the planets and moons will continue next week, starting with Saturn, the sixth planet.

What Are You Looking Up?

4 November 2005

Merriam Webster reports that the word most often looked up in its online dictionary during the month of September was refugee. Two other Katrina-related words made the top twenty, levee, coming in at number four and hurricane at eleven.

Other words in the top twenty indicate that school is back in session, with students looking up words for assignments. Numbers two and three were effect and affect. Metaphor and irony come in at five and six. Paradigm and rhetoric also make the list.

Scalito & Scooter

4 November 2005

Two nicknames have been in the news as of late. The first is Scalito, a name given to Samuel Alito, President Bush’s latest nominee to replace Sandra Day O’Connor on the Supreme Court. The nickname is a play on two names, Alito’s and that of Justice Antonin Scalia. Both judges are very conservative and the blending of their names emphasizes the similarities in their respective judicial philosophies.

Alito’s nickname is just about a year old, or at least that’s as far back as the blog search engine Technorati (http://www.technorati.com) can trace it. On 4 November 2004, the blog Serendipity contained this fragment, "With old Rehnquist’s health in decline, rumor has it that Samuel A. Alito Jr… been nicknamed Scalito because is just like Antonin Scalia." Unfortunately, that blog no longer exists and all that is left is this fragment returned by Technorati. But even without the entire context, it is clear that the blog’s author did not coin the term.

The use of the nickname Scalito is pretty much restricted to those who oppose Alito’s confirmation to a seat on the court. It is not a flattering nickname. Besides connoting that Alito is not an independent thinker, the –ito is Spanish suffix meaning little, a little Scalia as it were.

Not all nicknames are pejorative, however. Another Bush administration nickname in the news is Scooter, the moniker if Vice President Cheney’s former chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby. Libby was indicted for perjury, lying to federal officials, and obstruction of justice in the CIA leak scandal. Libby uses the nickname himself, apparently preferring it to his given name—so much so that no one is really quite sure what the "I" stands for. At various times it is given as Irv, Irve, or Irving.

And the origin of his Scooter nickname is also in doubt. At various times Libby himself has told different stories about the origin. He has said his father dubbed him that as a baby after watching him scoot about his crib. On other occasions he has claimed that it was a childhood comparison with Yankee shortstop Phil Scooter Rizzuto. "I had the range, but not the arm," claimed Libby at one point.

We all know what a nickname is, but many of us probably don’t know how that word came to be. Why is it nick? The answer is in something linguists call metanalysis. The word was originally ekename, eke (additional) + name, and dates to the beginning of the 14th century. About 140 years later it had become nekename. Through the process of metanalysis, the N in the article an migrated to the noun, an ekename became a nekename.

Nickname is not the only example of metanalysis. Napkin is another example. The process works in the other direction as well. Orange was once naranj and apron was naperon.

The Bush administration is no stranger to nicknames. The president is, of course, Dubya (a reference to his middle initial W) or 43 (he is the 43rd president; his dad is 41). Bush, himself, is rather famous for bestowing nicknames on people. Russian President Vladimir Putin is the unflattering Pootie-Poot and British Prime Minister Tony Blair is Landslide. His advisor Karl Rove is alternately Boy Genius or Turd Blossom, depending on how the president feels about him that day. Colin Powell is The World’s Greatest Hero, a name that can be either positive or negative depending on tone of voice. Vice President Cheney is Big Time, a reference to a famous incident involving a four-letter word. Condoleezza Rice is Guru, after her tutoring in foreign policy, and not as the comic strip Doonesbury joked Brown Sugar. Three people share the nickname Big O, Senator Olympia Snowe, former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill, and TV personality Bill O’Reilly. New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd is The Cobra, evidently for her venomous columns attacking the administration. Former Enron Chairman Kenneth Lay was Kenny Boy, but Bush hasn’t been that chummy with him of late.

It is doubtful that Bush ever referred to Judge Alito as Scalito, although he has been known to call Harriet Miers Bulldog In Size 6 Shoes.

Trafalgar & The Language of the Age of Sail, Part 2

28 October 2005

Two hundred years ago last week, on 21 October 1805, the Battle of Trafalgar was fought off the coast of Spain. A fleet of 27 Royal Navy ships under the command of Vice Admiral Horatio Nelson defeated a fleet of 33 French and Spanish ships under the command of Vice Admiral Pierre Charles Silvestre de Villeneuve. In the battle, 22 French and Spanish ships were captured or sunk. No British ships were lost. Villeneuve was captured and eventually paroled back to France. Upon his return he was found dead in his room at an inn, stabbed in the chest six times. The death was ruled a suicide.

Because of the decisive victory at Trafalgar, even though the Napoleonic wars continued for another ten years, the threat of Napoleon’s invading England was ended that October. But more than this, Trafalgar cemented British control of seas for a hundred years and bestowed on the Royal Navy an aura of invincibility.

Regular readers of the Wordorigins site and those who’ve read Word Myths are familiar with CANOE, the jocular Conspiracy to Attribute Nautical Origins to Everything, the habit of naval enthusiasts to find nautical etymologies for all sorts of words and phrases. We’re all familiar with the more common terms that are falsely given nautical origins. But there are a large number of words and phrases that do have nautical origins or relate to the Age of Sail. So in honor of the battle fought 200 years ago, here is a second tranche of words and phrases with true nautical connections.

batten, n., a strip of wood used to secure tarpaulins over hatches in bad weather, 1769. to batten down, v., to fasten with battens, 1823. A variant of baton.

broadside, n., 1. the side of a ship, 1591; the simultaneous firing of all the guns on one side of a ship, 1597.

cross the T, v., to bring one’s line of battle across the front or rear of the enemy’s line, allowing your fleet to fire the entire weight of its broadsides while simultaneously limiting the enemy’s ability to bring guns to bear. Nelson crossed the T at Trafalgar.

hulk, n., 1. a ship, c.1000; 2. the hull of a decommissioned ship, used as a storehouse, prison, or for other purposes, 1671; 3. a large person, 1597. From the Old English hulc.

hull, n., the body of a ship, 1571. Of obscure origin. Possibly the same word as hull, the shell or husk of seed, but this is not certain.

Kiss me, Hardy, c.phr., ascribed to be the final words of Nelson. Hardy was the captain of the HMS Victory.

line of battle, n., a fleet of ships of the largest size, usually 74 guns or more, also used adjectivally, 1695. From the battle formation of a line, allowing all the ships to deploy their full broadside.

loblolly, n., a thick gruel used especially to feed medical patients aboard ship. Also, loblolly boy and loblolly man to refer to a naval surgeon’s assistants. The lob- is probably echoic of a boiling stew. –lolly is probably from the Devon dialectal term for a broth or soup.

log, n., 1. a device used for determining a ship’s speed consisting of a block of wood attached to a line that is tossed overboard and the line measured over a fixed period, 1574; 2. clipped form of log book, a journal used to record the course and speed of a ship, 1825.

man-of-war, n., a warship, 1485. From the use of the term to mean a warrior or soldier.

mast, n., a pole fixed to the keel of a ship used to support sails, Old English from a common Germanic root.

master-at-arms, n., a petty officer charged with maintaining discipline aboard a ship, 1732.

midshipman, n., the highest rank of non-commissioned officer, a naval cadet, 1662. From the station of this officer amidships.

nautical, adj., relating to sailing and the sea, 1552. From the Middle French nautique, ultimately from the Greek nautikos, sailor.

orlop, n., the lowest deck of a ship, 1420. From the Dutch ouerloop, passage or walkway.

quarter-deck, n., a deck that extends for approximately a quarter of the ship’s length, especially the upper deck extending from the stern to the after-mast from which the captain commands the vessel, 1627.

rake, v., to incline from the perpendicular, especially to extend beyond the keel in the bow or stern, 1627; also n., the upper part of a ship’s hull that extends beyond the keel in the bow or stern, 1626. Of obscure origin.

rake, v., to sweep a ship’s deck with shot during battle, 1630. From the Old Norse raka, to scrape, the same root as the gardening implement.

reef, n., a section of a sail that can be rolled or folded to reduce the amount of sail exposed to the wind, 1390. From the Middle English riff or refe, ultimately from the Old Norse rif, which may be a variant of rib. Also a verb, meaning to reduce the size of a sail by means of a reef, 1667, from the noun.

rear admiral, n., a flag officer ranking below vice admiral, so called because the officer commanded the rear portion of the line of battle, 1589.

rudder, n., a flat board used to steer or propel a ship, c.725. From the Old English róder.

sail, n., a piece of canvas or cloth used to catch wind and propel a vessel forward, c.888; v., to travel on water, propelled by the wind, c.893. From the Old English segel, ultimately from a common Germanic root that has no corresponding cognates in other language families.

scuttlebutt, n., a cask of drinking water on board a ship, 1805; rumor, gossip, originally in US nautical usage, 1901. From scuttle, to cut a hole in and hence a cover for a hole, + butt, a cask.

ship of the line, n., a ship large enough to sail in a line of battle, 1706.

skipper, n., the captain of a ship, 1390. From the Middle Dutch schipper.

skylark, v., to play or frolic, 1809. An allusion to playing high in the rigging, like a skylark bird singing while soaring at altitude.

sloop, n., a one-masted, fore-and-aft rigged ship. From the Dutch sloep.

square-rigged, adj., to affix the yards and sails perpendicularly to the masts, in contrast to a fore-and-aft rig, 1769.

stern, n., the aft of a ship, c.1300. Originally, in reference to the rudder or steering gear located at the rear of the ship. Probably from the Old Norse stjórn, steering.

tap the admiral, v., to surreptitiously drink alcohol from a cask. From the myth that the cask containing Nelson’s corpse was found half empty upon the return of HMS Victory to Portsmouth. Nelson’s corpse was preserved in a cask of spirits, but it is highly unlikely that sailors actually drank from it, the myth arising from a joke sometime after the battle.

Trafalgar, n., cape on the south coast of Spain, between Cadiz and Gibraltar, near the site of the 1805 battle. From Arabic, either tarf-el-garb, western point, or taraf-al-aghar, pillar cave, a reference to the Pillars of Hercules.

waist, n., the amidships portion of a ship, 1495. Hence waister, a sailor stationed in that part of the ship, 1815.

warp, v., to move a ship by hauling on a rope or warp, 1513.

weather gage, n., a position windward of another ship, 1591. The ship that has the weather gage has the choice of whether to engage in battle or flee. The opposite of lee gage.