This is a glossary of some of the terms to be found in Nevil Shute's books. It is by no means exhaustive, but attempts to cover the following areas:
This glossary is the fruit of hard work and research by the following Shutists, some of whom did an in-depth analysis of specific books: Johan P. Bakker, FC Cook (RATR), Adrian Crowe, David Dawson-Taylor, Mills & Nancy Dyer, Ken England (ATLA), David Fletcher-Rogers, David McLoughlin, Chris Phillips (WHTTC), and Dan Telfair.
The terms are spelled as they were written in the books; the meanings are written mostly in UK English, with UK English spellings. For less experienced Shutists I have also included the book title acronyms often used in the Web site and the Newsletter. For errors and omissions please send an email to Chris Phillips.
| A | Back To Top | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Term | Part of speech | Meaning | Category |
| abo | noun | Aboriginal, coloured person. Now a pejorative term. | Australian |
| ack-ack | noun | Anti-aircraft fire. It comes from the British telephone code for the letter "A", which was pronounced "ack" to make it easier to hear than "ay" over a bad telephone line. Thus, "anti-aircraft fire" is abbreviated to "AA", and pronounced "ack-ack". | British |
| Admiral | noun | Royal Navy rank: responsible for one of the larger fleets. | Other |
| Admiral of the Fleet | noun | Royal Navy rank: the most senior individual in the navy below the Sea Lords. | Other |
| Aerlikon | noun | See Oerlikon. | Aeronautical |
| aft | adjective | Towards the back of a boat/ship/aircraft. | Nautical |
| aileron | noun | Hinged outer part of the trailing edge of an aircraft's wing that can be moved by the pilot using the control column to make the aircraft bank to the right or left. Making a controlled turn requires the correct use of ailerons and rudder. | Aeronautical |
| air log | noun | See integrator. | Aeronautical |
| ale | noun | Beer. | British |
| Alice Springs | noun | Town near the geographic centre of Australia. Originally a telegraphic relay station on the Overland Telegraph Line. Named for Mrs. Alice Todd, wife of 19th century superintendent of South Australian Posts and Telegraphs. Known as "The Alice". | Australian |
| AOC | acronym | An Old Captivity | Other |
| Archie | noun | First World War term used for anti-aircraft fire. It is believed to derive from a pilot in the Royal Flying Corps who, when attracting anti-aircraft fire, would, to steady his nerves, sing a number made famous by the British music-hall comedian George Robey: "Archibald, certainly not !" His squadron mates would greet him when he returned from a flight with "Archibald give you any trouble today?" Eventually "Archibald" became "Archie" and to the end of the war, German anti-aircraft fire was known as such. It was still in use at the beginning of the Second World War, but was soon replaced by ack-ack (British) and flak (British and U.S.). | Aeronautical |
| ATLA | acronym | A Town Like Alice/The Legacy | Other |
| ATS | noun | See Auxiliary Territorial Service. | Other |
| Auster | noun | A small British civilian aircraft. | Aeronautical |
| Auxiliary Territorial Service | noun | The women's branch of the British Army during the Second World War. It was formed on 9 September 1938, initially as a women's voluntary service, and existed until 1 February 1949. All women in the Army joined the ATS except for nurses, who joined Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service (QAIMS), and medical and dental officers, who were commissioned directly into the Army and held Army ranks. See its Wikipedia entry for more details. | Other |
| AVRO | noun | A type of aircraft used for training and early commercial flying. The name comes from the name of the designer: A.V. Roe. | Aeronautical |
| B | Back To Top | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Term | Part of speech | Meaning | Category |
| baa | phrase | In Landfall, Boden greets an officer from HMS Rodney, by saying "Baa". The story goes like this. Once upon a time, when HMS Rodney was moored in Scapa Flow, a sailor finding no girls ashore resorted to a sheep. He was caught and duly punished but the word got about and thereafter whenever Rodney came into port sailors in other ships used to hail those in Rodney with "BAA" or "RAADDDNEEE" in a sheep-like tone. This continued as long as Rodney was in commission even after the war, and is perhaps the reason why no ship has born that name since. Maybe the Admiralty is waiting until all those who remember have slipped their cables. | Nautical |
| back | verb | When the wind changes in an anti-clockwise direction with respect to the compass. See also veer. | Nautical |
| back number | phrase | Something that is no longer viable or available. | British |
| backstay | noun | A wire or rope that attaches the sides of a boat behind the mast to the mast head. Part of the rigging that keeps the mast vertical. | Nautical |
| backward stagger | noun | An uncommon arrangement of aircraft design, where the top wing of a biplane is mounted more to the rear than the bottom wing. | Aeronautical |
| bally | adjective | A mild swear-word, used in place of "bloody" by the more genteel (or an author, in times past, trying to avoid the censor's red pen). | British |
| bank (v) | verb | To incline an aeroplane to the left or the right. For example, to bank to the left, you move the control column to the left. This hinges the left aileron (a moveable part of the wing surface) upwards and the right aileron downwards, so that the changed airflow pushes the left wing down and the other up. Combined with the use of the rudder, banking causes the plane to turn. | Aeronautical |
| Bank of New South Wales | noun | Major Australian bank with branches in most large towns. Now called "Westpac". | Australian |
| barrage | noun | Term used for the collective effect of a group of guns (artillery or anti-aircraft). | British |
| basement | noun | The part of a house below ground level. | British |
| bathing dresses | noun | Swimsuits, swimming costumes. | British |
| battery | noun | Group of guns (artillery or anti-aircraft). | Nautical |
| beam | noun | The breadth of a boat at its widest point. "Abeam", or "on the beam" means alongside the boat. Thus, "the buoy is just coming abeam" means that the boat is just passing the buoy, and "The land was half a mile on his beam" means that the boat was sailing parallel to the land, and half a mile away. | Nautical |
| beam-ends, on her | phrase | Lying on her side, with one half of the boat underwater. | Nautical |
| bear up | phrase | To turn a boat more closely to the wind - bearing off is the opposite. | Nautical |
| beat (1) | noun | A course that requires you to sail into the wind. A dead beat requires you to sail directly into the wind (by beating/tacking), i.e. your destination is exactly upwind of your point of departure. Also called tacking. | Nautical |
| beat (2) | verb | Sail into the wind. A sailing boat cannot sail directly into the wind. At best it can manage a course which is some 35° off the wind direction. Thus, the boat is sailed in a zig-zag pattern as it is sailed alternately from the port to the starboard tack (to the left and then to the right of the wind direction). | Nautical |
| below | adverb | Downstream. | Nautical |
| bend | verb | Tie a rope to another rope or to an anchor. | Nautical |
| beriberi | noun | Vitamin B deficiency which may be caused by a diet of polished or old rice. | Other |
| Bessoneau | noun | A canvas covered aircraft hangar. See the pics on this French site | Aeronautical |
| bill of health | noun | A document required in the period of WHTTC when sailing internationally. It was granted by the authorities at the port of departure to indicate that no-one on the boat was sick with any notifiable disease when it sailed. | Nautical |
| bin | noun | Arabic. Son of -. | Other |
| binnacle | noun | Housing for the compass. Normally made of wood to avoid that the presence of metal influences the compass needle. | Nautical |
| binti | noun | Arabic. Daughter of -. | Other |
| Blackburn Bluebird | noun | A small British civilian aircraft. | Aeronautical |
| blind flying panel | noun | Instruments used when flying in bad weather. In NS's time, they helped the pilot determine how much the aircraft is flying off a straight and level course, by using gimbals to visualize an artificial horizon. In modern times radar and other electronic aids are used to show the position and attitude of the aircraft. | Aeronautical |
| blipping | noun | A method of slowing early aircraft engines by intermittently turning off the ignition, because they didn't have variable speed control. | Aeronautical |
| block | noun | A structure that contains one or more sheaves, or pulleys. Used in sets typically of two blocks with one or two wheels each and rope passing backwards and forwards around the wheels; the system thus created allows one man to lift an object much heavier than he could manage without the blocks. | Nautical |
| blowed | verb | A very mild imprecation, probably closest to "damned". "Blowed if I know" means "I haven't any idea". "Well I'll be blowed" means "What a surprise!" or "How amazing", or even "Cool!". | British |
| blower | noun | Slang term for a telephone or radio. | British |
| blue cattle dog | noun | Cattle dog bred in Queensland with grey coat mottled with black. Also called "blue heeler" from its habit of nipping recalcitrant beasts above the hoof. | Australian |
| boat, in the same | phrase | See in the same boat. | British |
| bob | noun |
Slang for a shilling - one twentieth of a
pound
sterling. A shilling contained twelve pence, and was worth 5 new pence in today's currency. This is why English children used to have to learn their twelve times tables, so that they could do arithmetic in pounds, shillings, and pence. It has also been suggested that these non-metric units contributed to explain why such a small insignificant country tacked on to the west end of Europe should have achieved such an important world position in the 19th Century. When their merchants bought goods by weight in tons, hundredweights (20 to a ton), stones (8 to a hundredweight), pounds (14 to a stone), and ounces (16 to a pound), and paid for them in pounds sterling, shillings (20 to a pound), pence (12 to a shilling), and farthings (4 to a penny), not to speak of guineas (worth 21 shillings), and then worked out the total bill in their heads, without calculator or abacus, your average non-Englishman was left speechless, convinced that verily these people were Gods. It took a few years of colonisation to disabuse them of this belief. |
British |
| boiler suit | noun | British term for coveralls. | British |
| Boley watchmaker's lathe | noun | A watchmaker's lathe generally describes a very small, high-precision lathe which is not usually equipped with the normal screw- or shaft-feed for the carriage. Since the parts to be made are generally very small, the only lateral feed provision is usually contained within the traversing carriage of the lathe. Watchmaker's lathes are also generally equipped with some form of precision collet chuck, rather than the more common 3- or 4-jaw chuck, which is generally too large and inaccurate for horological work. Some examples of the Boley product may be seen here. | Other |
| bonza | noun | Australian slang. So obsolete as to be quaint. Very good, excellent. | Australian |
| boom (1) | noun | Part of a boat's rigging - the horizontal wooden or metal pole that is attached at one end to the mast and which forms the baseline of the sail. | Nautical |
| boom (2) | noun | A buoyed cable stretched across a harbour mouth or narrow passage, to prevent the entry and exit of boats. | Nautical |
| boom (3) | noun | Upright sticks marking the line of a channel - used in quiet waters instead of channel buoys. | Nautical |
| boong | noun | Possibly Australian Aboriginal origin. Aboriginal, coloured person. Now a pejorative term. | Australian |
| Bovril | noun | A beef-flavoured paste that one mixed with hot water to make a warming, nourishing drink. Still sold. | British |
| bow | noun | Front of a boat - also bows. Pronounced "ow", not "oh". | Nautical |
| box and cox | phrase | Used in WHTTC to refer to the sharing of one aeroplane between more than one pilot. It originates from the naval habit of saving space by supplying only one bunk or hammock for two sailors who would be on different watches, and thus never need it at the same moment. From the title of a farce by J. M. Morton (1811-1891), in which two characters (Mr Box and Mr. Cox) unwittingly share an apartment, one by day, the other by night. | British |
| brat | noun | A small child who is being a nuisance. Sometimes used to refer generically to all small children, in a slightly pejorative way. | British |
| bridge, cross that | phrase | See cross that bridge. | British |
| Brisbane | noun | Capital city of Queensland, in the south east corner of the state. Named for the sixth governor of New South Wales. | Australian |
| brought up | verb | Stopped. | Nautical |
| BTBS | acronym | Beyond the Black Stump | Other |
| bulkhead | noun | A transverse structure in a boat that maintains the hull shape and prevents the boat from collapsing under the water pressure. | Nautical |
| bull | noun | See outer. | British |
| bulwarks | noun | The outer parts of the deck. In larger boats the bulwarks would be a handrail or other superstructure preventing one from falling overboard. In a smaller boat they might consist of a partial handrail, say at the bows, plus the various parts of the rigging that are attached to the outermost part of the deck. | Nautical |
| buoy | noun | Floating object, anchored to the bottom; used to mark channels, tie up boats, etc. | Nautical |
| burgee | noun | A small flag flown at the masthead, sometimes decorated with a motif appropriate to the name of the boat, its port of origin, the yacht club its owner belongs to etc. It also has a practical purpose, to help determine wind direction. | Nautical |
| burglary | noun | Theft. | British |
| Burns Philp (Burns, Philp & Company Limited) | noun | Merchants and traders both in the western Pacific Ocean and in northern Queensland. Also known as "Bloody Pirates". | Australian |
| Bush Brothers | noun | Travelling Anglican ministers in north and western Queensland. Active in the Townsville diocese, which would have included Willstown. | Australian |
| button switch | noun | The ignition switch to "blip" the engine was usually a button on the control stick. Blipping created a fire hazard so was used only when necessary. | Aeronautical |
| C | Back To Top | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Term | Part of speech | Meaning | Category |
| C of A | noun | Certificate of Airworthiness - An annual maintenance inspection procedure on private aircraft. | Aeronautical |
| cabin (aero.) | noun | The part of an aeroplane where the passengers or the cargo is carried. | Aeronautical |
| cabin (naut.) | noun | The enclosed part of a small yacht, including the sleeping, cooking and dining areas. In a larger boat, the term is used to refer to any room used to sleep in (e.g. captain's cabin). | Nautical |
| Cairns | noun | Small city on north coast of Queensland, about 1600 km (1000 miles) north of Brisbane. It has been a tourist jump-off for the Great Barrier Reef for decades. | Australian |
| Canberra | noun | Political capital of Australia. | Australian |
| canvas water-bag | noun | Prior to the arrival of plastic containers, the water-proofed canvas water-bag was used to transport water by hand. | Nautical |
| Captain | noun | Royal Navy rank: responsible for a ship. | Other |
| carried away | verb phrase | To be removed from a boat by the wind or sea (inanimate objects only). | Nautical |
| castor oil | noun | Lubricating oil used in rotary aircraft engines. | Aeronautical |
| cathode ray plug indicator | noun | Same as engine analyzer. A device which allows diagnosis of engine performance while in flight. Found on the last few generations of large propeller driven aircraft. | Aeronautical |
| cats and dogs, raining | phrase | See raining cats and dogs. | British |
| CC gear | noun | A device to prevent a machine gun from hitting the blades of a propeller, as it fires through the propeller's path. Named for its inventors, Constantinesco and Colley. | Aeronautical |
| cellon | adjective | A transparent synthetic resin, used frequently in the 1930s and 1940s for transparent aeroplane parts (cockpit cover, bomb-aimer's blister, gun turrets, etc.). Later replaced by Perspex or Plexiglas, which did not yellow with age. | Aeronautical |
| chain locker | noun | The area under the foredeck where the anchor chain is stored when the anchor is not in use. | Nautical |
| chartered accountant | noun | An officially qualified accountant, who has passed public exams to receive his or her "charter". | British |
| chihike | verb | A reliable slang dictionary gives: "Various meanings, incl. a salutation, a noisy disturbance, jeering, banter, tease, and make fun of". I grew up thinking it just meant "making gentle fun of in a noisy way", and this seems to fit the NS contexts. We pronounced it "chai-aik"; the dictionary gives a variety of spellings and pronunciations. | British |
| chocks | noun | Blocks, usually wood, placed around the wheels to prevent aircraft movement on the ground. | Aeronautical |
| chunda | verb | Australian slang. Vomit. | Australian |
| circuit | noun | A standardized path over the ground which an airplane takes when flying near a runway and preparing to land. Same as traffic pattern. Also any path over the ground returning to the same point. | Aeronautical |
| circuits and bumps | phrase | Practicing repeated take-offs and landings. Same as "touch and goes". | Aeronautical |
| cistern | noun | The plumbing in British houses of NS's period was not connected directly to the water mains for all purposes. A house would normally have a cold tap in the kitchen, and maybe another outside the house, that would contain drinkable water direct from the mains. All other cold taps in the house would be connected to a tank placed normally in the roof space, which would be maintained full by a ball-valve that regulated the entrance of water from the mains. A hot-water heater (boiler) would also be connected to the tank. Thus, water would issue by gravity alone from all hot taps and those cold taps not attached to the mains. This system was developed during a period when it was very difficult to maintain a regular mains pressure, and is still widely in use. The term cistern was used to refer both to the main cold-water tank, and to the smaller tank, with its own ball valve, that provided the water to flush the toilet. | British |
| clamped down (weather) | phrase | The weather has become bad. | Aeronautical |
| Clerget | noun | Make of aircraft rotary engine. | Aeronautical |
| Cloncurry | noun | Town in North West Queensland. Once a copper mining area, now mostly engaged in supporting beef cattle industry of the surrounding semi-arid region. A stopover at one time on the Qantas airline route from Sydney to London. Still known as "The Curry". | Australian |
| coal | verb | To take on solid fuel. | Nautical |
| Cobb and Co. | noun | Australian coaching, transport and mail contracting company founded in 19th century by an American immigrant, Mr. Freeman Cobb and his brothers. Used an American type coach with longitudinal springs. | Australian |
| cobber | noun | Australian slang. Quaintly obsolete. Equivalent to "mate" or the American "buddy". | Australian |
| cockpit (aero.) | noun | The part of a fighter plane where the pilot sits. | Aeronautical |
| cockpit (naut.) | noun | The rear part of a yacht from which it is steered. | Nautical |
| colours, to come to the | phrase | To enlist. The "colours" means the flag of the regiment or other branch of the services. You might have heard of the "Trooping of the Colour", a ceremony in London where the flags of the regiment that will guard the Queen for the next year are marched (trooped) in front of the troops. It dates from a very real necessity in the days when armies were raised by forcing local farm-workers and the like into uniform to fight a battle. Parading the "colours" in front of them made sure they knew who they were fighting for! | Nautical |
| Commander | noun | Royal Navy rank: despite the name, commands only very small ships. Normally the second-in-command of a naval vessel, responsible for navigation. | Other |
| Commodore | noun | Royal Navy rank: responsible for a small fleet. | Other |
| compass and log | phrase | Navigating by "dead reckoning", i.e. by steering a compass course calculated from a map (chart), taking into consideration current winds and currents, and measuring one's progress along the course by using a log. | Nautical |
| compass variation | noun | A compass does not point due North, but to the North Magnetic Pole, which is, in 2008, at Lat 84.2°N, Long 124°W. Depending where you are in the world, you need to adjust any compass bearing by applying the local "variation". In the UK area in the 1930s the North Magnetic Pole was about 11°W of true North. Currently, the variation is less than 6°W, and is reducing each year, as the North Magnetic Pole is apparently moving towards the true North Pole at about 40kms per year (in actual fact it is moving laterally with respect to the true North Pole, but from the UK it seems to be moving towards it as it moves behind it). | Nautical |
| Comper Swift | noun | A small British civilian aircraft. | Aeronautical |
| consommé julienne | noun | A clear soup made of strained meat or vegetable stock, served hot with long thin strips of vegetables. | British |
| Constellation | noun | Lockheed "Constellation" Four-engined, propeller-driven long range airliner of the 1940s and 1950s. Notable for a triple-rudder tail. | Aeronautical |
| contact | phrase | Turning on the engine's ignition switch to start. Also the command to do so given by the person turning the propeller. (See swing the propeller ). | Aeronautical |
| conveyance | noun | The British legal document that transfers the ownership of a house from one party to another. | British |
| cop an outer | phrase | See outer. | British |
| Corporation | noun | The generic title given to the services of local government. Although the word comes from the title "City Corporation", if some other body was responsible for a service, such as a County Council, that other body was also referred to as "the Corporation". | British |
| counter | noun | The aft part of a ship above the water line and immediately in front of the stern itself. | Nautical |
| cow, a fair | phrase | Obstinate, difficult, miserable. | Australian |
| cowling | noun | The light weight structure enclosing an aircraft engine, made to smooth out airflow. Normally easily opened or removed. | Aeronautical |
| crook | adjective | Bad, ill. | Australian |
| cross sea | phrase | When the wind and the current/tide are at (more-or-less) right angles to each other. | Nautical |
| cross that (bridge or ditch) when we come to it | phrase | A potential or latent problem will be dealt with when it becomes a real problem, not before. | British |
| CSIRO | noun | Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation. Research groups funded by the Australian federal government. | Australian |
| curling-irons | noun | Used for curling hair before the days of electric hair-curling tongs. The principle was the same in that you heated the curling-irons over an open fire and wrapped the hair around them so that it curled. | British |
| cutter | noun | A very popular type of yacht with one mast, normally capable of being sailed by a crew of two. | Nautical |
| D | Back To Top | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Term | Part of speech | Meaning | Category |
| D.7 | noun | A high quality WWI German fighter aircraft, built by Fokker. | Aeronautical |
| Dakota | noun | English name for the DC-3. A clever acronym composed from the letters DACoTA for D ouglas A ircraft Co. T ransport A ircraft. | Aeronautical |
| Darwin | noun | City on the north west coast of the Northern Territory. Named for Charles Darwin, English naturalist. Stopover on the old Sydney - Brisbane - Cloncurry - Darwin - Singapore airline route. | Australian |
| DC-3 | noun | Douglas DC3, also known as the "Gooney Bird" Twin-engined, all-metal transport aircraft introduced in the 1930s. Generally called "DC3" in Australia and the USA, Dakota in England. | Aeronautical |
| DC6B | noun | One of the last large 4-engined propeller passenger aircraft. | Aeronautical |
| dead beat | noun | See beat. | Nautical |
| dekko | noun | British/Australian slang. More or less obsolete. Inspection, glance. It was orginally brought back to Britain by soldiers returning from duty in India: it comes from the Hindi dekhna, to see. | British/Australian |
| dicey | adjective | Risky. | British |
| dinghy | noun | A small rowing boat used to transfer between a moored boat and the shore or another boat. Normally towed behind the yacht or carried upside down on the cabin roof or the foredeck. In more luxury yachts, carried on derricks at the stern. | Nautical |
| dinkie-die | adjective | Not quite obsolete Australian slang. Genuine, the truth. | Australian |
| district nurse | noun | In England in the period before WWII, which was before the advent of the National Health Service, each locality was supplied with a district nurse who gave health advice, and visited known sick people who lived on their own, or who couldn't afford to pay for a private nurse, to ensure they were getting the proper care. | British |
| ditch | verb | To come down in the sea; a plane that comes down on to the sea "ditches". Originally, the "Ditch" was the nickname for the English Channel, and ditching was what you did if you flew into it. But as more British aeroplanes came down it than in any other area of sea, the term came to be associated with coming down into any area of sea or ocean. | British |
| ditch, cross that | phrase | synonym for cross that bridge. | British |
| Dolphin | noun | The Sopwith 5F.1 Dolphin was a British fighter aircraft manufactured by the Sopwith Aviation Company. It was used by the Royal Flying Corps and its successor, the Royal Air Force, during the First World War. | Aeronautical |
| dope (1) | noun | A type of paint often used on aircraft, which was, and still is called "dope". In particular for early aircraft, which were built as a wooden frame over which was stretched a material, such as canvas. Applying "dope" caused the canvas to shrink tight onto the frame. | Aeronautical |
| dope (2) | noun | Slang for drugs. | British |
| dope (3) | verb | To take drugs or to be under the influence of them. | British |
| dourly (adv) | adjective | Silently ill-humoured; gloomy. | British |
| Dragonfly, Dragon | noun | De Havilland light and medium aircraft used all over the world. In Australia, used mainly in Queensland and the Northern Territory, possibly assembled by Qantas at Longreach in the 1930s. | Aeronautical |
| draw up | verb | To come to a halt. | British |
| drawer, top, out of the | phrase | See top drawer. | British |
| drawing pins | noun | Thumb tacks. | British |
| drawing-room | noun | Room furnished with easy chairs and divans, sofas or settees where the family could sit and read, listen to the radio, play the piano or other musical instruments, entertain guests, etc. The name comes from "withdrawing room", a room in wealthier houses of the 19th century to where the women "withdrew" after dinner, leaving the men in the dining room to smoke cigars and drink brandy. By the time NS was writing, his heroes would no longer be observing these practices, but the name for the room had remained in use, albeit a little shortened. | British |
| dual (take out the) | noun | Remove a second control stick to make more room in the cockpit. The second stick is used when an aircraft is used as a trainer, and both instructor and trainee pilot have interconnected control sticks. | Aeronautical |
| dumb-bell | noun | Used in weight-training to strengthen the muscles of the arms. Consists of a short metal bar joining two weights. | British |
| dunnage | noun | Personal baggage. | Nautical |
| E | Back To Top | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Term | Part of speech | Meaning | Category |
| ebbing tide | phrase | See tide. | Nautical |
| Edo | noun | Aircraft manufacturer; named after the initials of its founder Earl Dodge Osborn. | Aeronautical |
| eiderdown | noun | Bed covering stuffed with feathers (traditionally feathers from an eider duck's nest), duvet. | British |
| elevator | noun | A moveable part of the tail. A main flight control used to raise and lower the nose. | Aeronautical |
| ensign (flag) | noun | The flag flown at the rear of the boat or at its masthead to denote its country of registration. For British-registered boats, the ensign is a red, white or blue flag with the Union Jack in the upper, inner quadrant (the white ensign also has a red cross of St. George delimiting the quadrants). The white ensign is flown by all Royal Navy ships, the blue ensign by ships commanded by a Royal Navy Reserve captain and the red ensign by all other British registered ships, including yachts. Some British organisations have a special version of the appropriate ensign, with additional markings or symbols. | Nautical |
| ensign (person) | noun | A junior officer on naval ship. | Nautical |
| ETA | acronym | Estimated time of arrival. | Aeronautical |
| even keel | phrase | Level. | Nautical |
| F | Back To Top | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Term | Part of speech | Meaning | Category |
| fair | adjective | A fair wind or tide is one that helps you on your way, a foul wind or tide is against you, and makes your passage much slower, or may at times actually prevent you from sailing. | Nautical |
| falling tide | phrase | See tide. | Nautical |
| fathom | noun | A measure of the depth of the sea, equivalent to 6 feet (1.83 metres). | Nautical |
| finger trouble | phrase | British slang for doing something stupid. It stems from the vulgar phrase "get your finger out", which is said if someone is slow at doing something - the connotation is sexual! (you might also remember that in The Chequer Board, when Phil Morgan and the other prisoners wanted to convince the investigating British aircraft that the Japs had indeed left Rangoon, they painted "EXTRACT DIGIT" on the roof, as proof that this was not a Japanese ruse.) | British |
| Flags | noun | Nautical nickname for the flag-lieutenant, an admiral's aide-de-camp. | Nautical |
| flak | noun | Anti-aircraft fire. Although widely used by both British and American airmen, flak is actually the German nickname for anti-aircraft fire, from Fl(ieger)a(bwehr)k(anone), aircraft-defense gun. | Aeronuatical |
| flaps | noun | Moveable panels on the rear of a wing used to aid in flying slowly. | Aeronautical |
| flare-path | noun | For use at night, the edges of the runway would be marked by a double line of small fires. These were often just metal containers of oil which could be set alight when the aeroplanes needed to take-off or land. | Aeronautical |
| flooding tide | phrase | See tide. | Nautical |
| floor | noun | In Britain, as in most of Europe, you enter a house at the ground floor and go upstairs to the first floor, and then on to the second, etc. Thus, the last floor in a building is always called the n-1th floor, where n is the total number of floors. In the U.S., the floor at ground level is the first floor, and you go upstairs to the second and subsequent floors, so the highest floor is the nth floor. | British |
| flowing tide | phrase | See tide. | Nautical |
| flywheel | noun | Early engines were equipped with a heavy cogged flywheel attached to the engine's main crankshaft. You turned the flywheel using a cranked handle attached to a small cogged wheel that was meshed onto the flywheel. As the engine was trying to fire, the weight of the flywheel helped maintain the momentum that you had created by turning the cranked handle. | Nautical |
| Fokker | noun | A Dutch aircraft manufacturer, named for the founder, Anthony Fokker. The company was forced to build aircraft for Germany in WWI, in particular the Fokker Triplane, flown by Baron von Richtoven, among others. Its aircraft did not play a major part in WW2, but the company survived into the post-war period, where it built commercial planes (in particular the Friendship) until bankruptcy in 1996. Fokker went into business with NS's Airspeed in 1935, a move that cost Airspeed some of the early Air Ministry rearmament contracts, because the recipients of such contracts had to sign the Official Secrets Act and could not have aliens on their boards. | Aeronautical |
| folded the wings | phrase | Some light aircraft were built so that the wings could be folded easily on the ground. This was to facilitate storage. | Aeronautical |
| forage cap | noun | Type of soft hat worn by officers in the RAF in this period (when not in combat). It could be folded down the centre-line, and thus had the approximate form of a flattened capital M when viewed from the front. | Aeronautical |
| fore | adjective | Towards the front of a boat. | Nautical |
| forecastle | noun | In a large ship, e.g. a merchant or navy ship, the front section of the superstructure, typically where the crew messes. In a small yacht, the area under the foredeck. Pronounced "foak'sul". | Nautical |
| foresail | noun | A triangular sail smaller than the mainsail, and set forward of the mast in a small boat. | Nautical |
| forestay | noun | A wire or rope that attaches the bows of a boat to the mast head. Part of the rigging that keeps the mast vertical. | Nautical |
| foul | adjective | See fair. | Nautical |
| full tide | phrase | See tide. | Nautical |
| fuselage | noun | The body of the airplane. | Aeronautical |
| fusty | adjective | Damp, stale-smelling. | British |
| G | Back To Top | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Term | Part of speech | Meaning | Category |
| gaff | noun | Part of the rigging of a gaff-rigged boat. About two thirds up the mast there is a pole (the gaff) attached to the mast at one end, that was held out diagonally upwards by a rope from the top of the mast to the other end of the gaff. The sail was stretched between boom, mast and gaff. If you are a fan of Arthur Ransome's "Swallows and Amazons" you will no doubt remember that the two dinghies that the children sailed were gaff-rigged. | Nautical |
| galley | noun | Kitchen of a boat. | Nautical |
| gawd | noun | London slang for "God". | British |
| gear | noun | General term for a miscellaneous group of objects. | Nautical |
| Ghan, the | noun | Railway service from Adelaide to Alice Springs. Named for Afghan camel drivers who carried supplies in central Australia during the later 19th and early 20th centuries. | Australian |
| gimbals | noun | A mechanism that holds an object such as a lamp, allowing it to remain horizontal when the boat pitches or rolls. | Nautical |
| gin and italian | noun | A not very expensive cocktail made from gin and sweet Italian vermouth. | British |
| glass (naut.) | noun | Barometer. "The glass is falling" means that the barometer is showing that the barometric pressure is dropping. | Nautical |
| Glauber's salt | noun | Sodium sulphate decahydrate. Purgative, cathartic. It is named after Johann Rudolf Glauber, who discovered it in the 17th century in Hungarian spring water. | Other |
| going's good, while the | phrase | To do something "while the going's good" is to take advantage of the opportunity that some favourable situation is providing at that moment. | British |
| goitre | noun | Enlarged thyroid gland resulting from iodine deficiency. | British |
| good as gold | phrase | Being very good - almost exclusively applied to children or animals. | British |
| Gosport patter | noun | A standardized verbal presentation of training information named after an early British flight school in Gosport, nerar Portsmouth. Normally said to explain something to someone while you are doing it, which is also known as "sitting next to Nelly". | Aeronautical |
| grazier | noun | A pastoralist, who raises sheep or cattle on a station. | Australian |
| grocer | noun | Shopkeeper selling all foodstuffs other than fresh meat, fish, fruit and vegetables. | British |
| ground engineer | noun | An aircraft mechanic. | Aeronautical |
| gum-boots | noun | Rubber boots (Wellingtons). Called so because rubber is obtained from a "gum tree". | British |
| gunwale | noun | Top line of planking on a boat's sides. Pronounced "gun'l". | Nautical |
| H | Back To Top | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Term | Part of speech | Meaning | Category |
| half-a-crown | noun | Slang for a coin in use from 1526 to 1967, and worth one eighth of a pound sterling, or two shillings and sixpence in the pre-decimalised English currency. The decimalised value would be twelve and a half new pence. As you might guess, there was also a coin called a crown, worth one quarter of a pound sterling, in use in the same period. It would have been nice if the half-a-crown coin had been a crown coin sawn in half, but sadly it was just an ordinary coin shape. Both coins are still minted occasionally, but in their decimalised form, and for special occasions only. | British |
| halliards, halyard | noun | The rope by which the sails are raised. | Nautical |
| Handley Page | noun | A British bomber aircraft. | Aeronautical |
| hard | noun | A concrete slope leading down into the water, and used for launching and recovering boats on trolleys. | Nautical |
| hard chine | adjective | A type of small-boat hull, where the sides are at an angle from the bottom rather than being rounded. Hard chine hulls are more manoeuvrable than other types. | Nautical |
| Harpic | noun | Harpic is the brand name of a toilet bowl cleaner launched in England in the 1920s and now marketed by Reckitt Benckiser. From the 1930s until comparatively recently, its slogan was "Cleans round the bend", the bend being the U-shaped trap behind the toilet bowl that prevents the bad air from the drains escaping into the bathroom. NS explained that he got the idea for Shak Lin's nickname from an RAF officer who was called Harpic because he was a bit crazy - "round the bend" being English slang for crazy or mad. See the June 2004 newsletter. | British |
| hatch | noun | An opening in a horizontal surface, such as a deck. In a small yacht, the entrance to the cabin normally consists of a pair of half-height doors and a sliding hatch above them; you need to open them all to get into the cabin, and they are collectively knows as the hatch. | Nautical |
| Hatry stuff | phrase | Improper business practices. The reference is to one Clarence Hatry, a British business tycoon of the 1920's, whose empire collapsed in 1928/29 when it was discovered that he had, in effect, "cooked the books" and created fictitious securities to provide collateral for new loans. Some analysts credit his failure with being the starting point of the Wall Street collapse of October 1929. A brief analysis of Hatry's demise may be found here. | Other |
| head | verb | Go in the direction of something or somewhere (e.g. "Head East" means "Go towards the East". | Nautical |
| headache, sick, as much use as | phrase | See sick headache. | British |
| heaving-line | noun | A light line thrown (heaved) from one vessel to another, or between a vessel and the shore. The recipient catches the light line and hauls it in. the heaving line itself is attached to a heavier line, which is attached itself to a heavier line, and so on until the recipient, perhaps with the aid of a capstan or vehicle, hauls in a rope heavy enough to do the job in hand (mooring, towing, etc.). | Nautical |
| heel | verb | When a boat leans over to one side under the pressure of the wind on the sails. | Nautical |
| helm, at the | phrase | To steer a boat; in a small boat it also has the conceptual sense of being in control. | Nautical |
| here's luck | phrase | Said before drinking an alcoholic drink, like "cheers", "bottoms-up", "chin-chin", etc. | British |
| Hermannsburg, an abo called Albert at | noun | Albert Namitjira, aboriginal landscape artist from the Lutheran mission at Hermannsburg, west of Alice Springs. Painted in a semi-impressionistic style with an unusual pastel palette. | Australian |
| higgledy piggledy | adjective | A mess, disorganised. | British |
| high tide | phrase | See tide. | Nautical |
| high water | phrase | See tide. | Nautical |
| hog on to it | phrase | Hold on to it, keep it. | British |
| hole in the top plane | phrase | On biplanes, a small wing section above the pilot is often left open to improve upward visibility. | Aeronautical |
| holiday | noun | Equivalent to "vacation" in American English. | British |
| hood (aero) | noun | Transparent cover for the cockpit of a fighter plane. | Aeronautical |
| Hudson | noun | A twin-engined aircraft used in WW2, built by Lockheed. | Aeronautical |
| I | Back To Top | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Term | Part of speech | Meaning | Category |
| in the same boat | phrase | Sharing the same problems. Strangely, the phrase is not used when people share the same good things! | British |
| integrator | noun | A device that mechanically counts the revolutions of the input propeller that powers the airspeed indicator, and can thus approximately measure the distance travelled through the air. The instrument thus created is called an air log. | Aeronautical |
| in irons | phrase |
Of a boat. Lying head to the wind, and unable to turn either way. When
a sailing boat, like a yacht or a dinghy, with fore-and-aft sails (not
the square-rigged type) lies head to wind (pointing in the direction of
the wind), the sails can be left to shiver in the wind and the boat drifts
slowly stern-first with the pressure of the wind on its superstructure.
The shape of the hull makes it stay pointing into the wind. To get moving again you have to back the jib (i.e. pull the jib sheets to port or starboard) so that the jib offers some wind resistance and the wind pushes the bows of the boat sufficiently the other way that the wind can fill the main sail. You then let go of the backed jib and the boat can sail away. In a boat without a jib you have to push the mainsail boom out to one side by brute force, against the wind pressure; this time the stern of the boat moves away from the direction you are pushing the boom, until it reaches the point where you you can let go the boom and let the mainsail fill with the wind in the normal way. This is much harder. The expression comes from the use of the word "irons" to mean "shackles", i.e. rings fixed around a prisoner's legs and/or arms to keep the prisoner from moving. In the naval case, it is the boat that is the prisoner. To "throw the vessel into irons", which is a quote from "Pilotage", is to steer directly into the wind, so that the boat goes into irons and loses way - Shute's use of the verb "throw" indicates a violence in the intent, even if the result is fairly non-violent slowing-down to the eye of the observer. |
Nautical |
| island bridge | noun | A ship is navigated from its bridge. If the bridge has deck areas fore and aft of it, it is called an island bridge. An aircraft carrier has an island bridge, as did many merchant vessels prior to the container era. | Nautical |
| ITW | acronym | In the Wet | Other |
| J | Back To Top | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Term | Part of speech | Meaning | Category |
| jammed everything forward | phrase | Quickly applied full power. | Aeronautical |
| jetty | noun | A structure, such as a pier, that projects into a body of water, and from which people can board boats or other vessels. | Nautical |
| jib | noun | A triangular sail smaller than the mainsail, the front edge of which is attached to the forestay. | Nautical |
| Julia Creek | noun | North western Queensland town, a few hundred kilometres east of Cloncurry. Shute has it wrong, the railhead (terminus) had been at Mount Isa, well to the west since about 1928. | Australian |
| K | Back To Top | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Term | Part of speech | Meaning | Category |
| K | acronym | Ruined City/Kindling | Other |
| kedge anchor | noun | Small, light anchor, normally attached to the stern of a boat to keep it lying in the same direction regardless of wind or tides. | Nautical |
| kicking back | phrase | The engine suddenly going backwards when being starting by hand, because you did not achieve enough momentum when turning over the engine to get the piston in the firing cylinder to go past its highest point before the fuel ignites and pushes it back. Dangerous! | Aeronautical |
| kitbag | noun | The more-or-less cylindrical bag in which a sailor or soldier carries his possessions. | Nautical |
| Kruschens | noun | "Kruschen salts" was the name for a popular preparation used for indigestion, the principle component of which was magnesium sulphate. The name appears to have been most used in Britain and the Empire, although Kruschen salts are still sold today throughout the world under that name. It appears to have been a trade name for the preparation which then morphed into a generic name. A 1920's advertising slogan for the product - "That Kruschen(s) feeling!" - apparently made its way into the popular argot. | Other |
| Kuala | noun | Malay. Town. | Other |
| L | Back To Top | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Term | Part of speech | Meaning | Category |
| L | acronym | Landfall: A Channel Story | Other |
| L5 | noun | Stinson L5 Sentinel: The unarmed L-5, affectionately known as the "flying jeep", with its short field takeoff and landing capability, was used for reconnaissance, removing injured combatants from front line areas, delivering supplies to isolated units, laying communications wire, spotting enemy targets for attack aircraft, transporting personnel, rescuing personnel in remote areas and even as a light bomber. In Asia and the Pacific, L-5s remained in service with USAF units as late as 1955. See this very informative site. | Aeronautical |
| laid up | noun | A boat is laid up for the winter by removing the sails and any other removable perishable fittings (tiller, rudder, etc.) and placing them in a dry storage place. | Nautical |
| lashing | noun | Thin cord used to tie anything down. | Nautical |
| launch, motor | noun | See motor-launch. | Nautical |
| lavatory pan | noun | Name for the ceramic object that you sit on in the bathroom. "Toilet bowl" or "lavatory bowl" is also used. | British |
| lavvy | noun | Slang for lavatory. | British |
| lay a vessel to the wind | phrase | Start sailing into the wind. | Nautical |
| lay the boat off | verb | To follow a course. | Nautical |
| leeward | adjective | Away from the direction from where the wind is coming. Normally just "lee", but if you say the full word, you pronounce it "loo-werd" | Nautical |
| Lem Putt | noun | A Hollywood comedy actor, Charles (Chic) Sale, wrote a story in 1928 to tell after dinner at the many Rotarian functions he attended. It's the quirky tale of Lem Putt, an odd but likeable carpenter who decides he needs to specialize in his trade. Instead of building houses or barns, he soon becomes the champion builder of outhouses, privies, and outside loos in his county. Entitled "The Specialist", it was published in 1929, originally just to prove his copyright, but it rapidly became a best-seller. | British |
| LeRhones | noun | Make of aircraft rotary engine. | Aeronautical |
| Liberator | noun | B-24, A 4-engined heavy bomber designed by Consolidated Aircraft, and used in WW2. | Aeronautical |
| lie (a destination) | verb | To be in a position to set a course which, with the prevailing wind and tide, allow you to arrive at the destination without having to tack. | Nautical |
| Lieutenant | noun | Royal Navy rank: a watch-keeping officer (in Britain it's pronounced "leftenant"). | Other |
| Lieutenant Commander | noun | Royal Navy rank: responsible for a less important section on a large ship (in Britain it's pronounced "leftenant commander"). | Other |
| LiLo | noun | Inflatable mattress, usually used for camping. This is one of those items where the same product from different manufacturers is known by the trade name used by the first or most successful of them. Pronounced "lie-low". | British |
| local yard | noun | Place where boats are built and/or repaired. | Nautical |
| locker | noun | Nautical equivalent of a cupboard. | Nautical |
| log, patent | noun | A device trailed in the water behind a boat to determine its speed through the water. It consists of a spinner immersed in the water and attached by a line to a fixed indicator that counts the revolutions of the spinner to determine the distance travelled by the boat. | Nautical |
| low tide | phrase | See tide. | Nautical |
| low water | phrase | See tide. | Nautical |
| low-wing monoplane | noun | An aeroplane in which the fuselage sits on top of the wings. The Supermarine Spitfire and Hawker Hurricane are both low-wing monoplanes, and it was probably these planes to which Shute was referring, without naming a specific model. | Aeronautical |
| LR | acronym | Lonely Road | Other |
| luff | noun | The leading edge of a sail. | Nautical |
| LVG | noun | A type of German aircraft in WWI, built by Luft-Verkehrs-Gesellschaft mbH. | Aeronautical |
| M | Back To Top | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Term | Part of speech | Meaning | Category |
| M | acronym | Marazan | Other |
| magneto | noun | Device used on a small engine to create the high-voltage spark required by the spark plug. | Nautical |
| main sheet | noun | Sheet of the mainsail. | Nautical |
| mainsail | noun | The largest of the sails on a boat. In the sort of boats that NS writes about, its front edge is attached to the mast, and its bottom edge to the boom. | Nautical |
| make fast | phrase | To tie-up a small boat to another, or to a quayside fitting, like a bollard or a ladder. | Nautical |
| making water | verb | Water is coming into a boat, either because the waves are coming inboard, or because of some damage that the boat has suffered. | Nautical |
| marline spike | noun | A metal cone-shaped tool usually made from iron or steel that is used for separating strands of rope or wire. Marline spikes typically have a knob on the wide end that can be used for pounding. | Nautical |
| merry hell | phrase | Something bad, even terrible. | British |
| mess (1) | adjective | Used of anything appertaining to the mess, e.g. mess-bill (a mess could have a bar where officers can buy themselves and each other drinks). | Nautical |
| mess (2) | noun | The place where armed forces personnel of similar ranks met off-duty to eat and relax together, e.g. officer's mess. | Nautical |
| mess (3) | verb | To socialize together, e.g. "The commissioned officers and the petty officers all mess together". | Nautical |
| MET | acronym | Meteorology (weather) department. | Aeronautical |
| meths | noun | Nickname for methylated spirit. | British |
| methylated spirit | noun | Ethyl alcohol (ethanol, or grain alcohol) denatured with methanol, or other denaturant, e.g., benzene. Used either for cleaning or to power small cooking stoves. | British |
| Midshipman | noun | Royal Navy rank: the lowest form of officer life - young and in training to be a sub-lieutenant. The midshipman rank is a curiosity; it is not a commissioned rank, and is normally occupied by a very young person, in times past as young as 12 years old, but it is an officer rank, and as such is senior to all non-commissioned ranks, including Boatswains, Coxswains and Chief Petty Officers, all of whom have vastly more experience. The name comes from where they were stationed - amidships. | Other |
| missus | noun | It was and is a working-class habit to refer to one's wife as "the Mrs", but it was and is always written "the missus". It is pronounced "miss-is". | British |
| monkey jacket | noun | Waist-length jacket tapering to a point at the back; worn by officers in the mess for formal dinners. | British |
| monoplane, low-wing | noun | See low-wing monoplane | Aeronautical |
| Monos | noun | Make of aircraft rotary engine. | Aeronautical |
| moor | verb | To tie up a boat. | Nautical |
| mooring | noun | A place to tie up a boat. | Nautical |
| Morse code | noun | Now largely forgotten, except by radio hams, Morse code was used in the early days of telegraphic transmission, and subsequently radio, when voice transmission could not be relied upon to give a clear reception. It consists of short (dit) and long (dah) pulses which are combined in different sequences to make letter and numbers. It was invented in the 1830s but has undergone significant changes, both in the transmission technique and the code itself. Amongst the more famous message patterns are "dit, dit, dit; dah, dah, dah; dit, dit, dit" which spelled out "SOS" or "Save Our Souls", and became a universal emergency call. Another was the BBC's playing, at the beginning of the news during the Second World War, the first 4 notes of Beethoven's 5th symphony, which gave "dit, dit, dit, dah", the code for the letter V, for victory. | Nautical |
| Moth | noun | See Tiger Moth. | Aeronautical |
| motor-launch | noun | Small motorized boat used to transfer people between ships and from ship to shore. | Nautical |
| MS | acronym | Most Secret | Other |
| mud berth | noun | In tidal waters, a yacht can be moored at a mud berth, where the boat sits on the mud when the tide is out. | Nautical |
| muffler | noun | Scarf (in Britain, no connection with the exhaust from a vehicle!). | Nautical/British |
| mulligatawny | |||
