A Maritime Lexicon

A sailor’s vocabulary.

A few hundred words sailors have invented, inherited, and stubbornly held onto.

From the bare-knuckle basics to the gloriously obsolete relics of the age of sail: some terms still get shouted across working cockpits today; others haven’t been said in earnest since the last square-rigger was laid up for good. Browse, filter, search — or take the quiz when you’re feeling salty. Stay for the strange music of words like futtock, scupper, and spanker boom.

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