adv. and prep.; also 4 obaft. [A prep.1 on, at, + baft, bæft, bi-æften, OE. be-æftan, itself a combination of be, bi, prep. about + æftan, adv. behind, back. See BAFT and AFT.]
A. adv.
† 1. Of direction: backwards. Obs.
c. 1275. Cursor Mundi, 22150 (Gött. MS.). The watris for to rin on baft. (Cotton MS.). The burn[i]s for to rin obaft. (Other MSS. of baft, on bafte.)
2. Of position: literally, back, behind, in the rear. From an early period, it seems to have been confined to a ship (in reference to which its immediate source baft is also found in the 14th c.); the bows are the foremost, and the stern the aft-ermost part, hence abaft means ‘In the after part or stern half of the ship.’
c. 1325. E. E. Allit. Poems, C. 148. Þe bur ber to hit baft þat braste alle her gere Þen hurled on a hepe þe helme & þe sterne.
1628. Digby, Voyage to Medit., 46. She was in excellent trimme (drawing 15 foote abaft and 14 and 3 inches before).
1677. London Gazette, mcxciv. 4. The St. Mary of Ostend with 22 Men,… having two Guns, one afore, and the other abaft.
1748. Anson, Voyage, II. iv. 220 (ed. 4). Her upper works were rotten abaft.
1833. Marryat, Peter Simple (1863), 256. I hove the log, marked the board, and then sat down abaft on the signal chest.
1863. Kingsley, Water Babies (1878), vii. 302. The gale was right abaft.
3. By extension from the nautical term.
1797. Thos. Brydges, Homer Travestie, II. 237. Two heads are twice as good as one; When one stands forward, one abaft, They spy all matters fore and aft.
B. prep. [The adv. defined by an object.]
1. In the rear of, behind. Only in nautical lang., with reference to a ship or any specified part of her.
1594. Davis, Seamens Secrets (1607), 6. I may say in the Seaman’s phrase … in the time of her separation she is abaft the Sunne.
1599. Rd. Hakluyt, Voyages, II. I. 187. The Boteswaine of the Galley walked abaft the maste, and his Mate afore the maste.
1757. Robertson, Portsm. Docky., in Phil. Trans., I. 292. Beside, the mawls worked at several shoars set up abaft the said 64 feet.
1825. H. B. Gascoigne, Path to Naval Fame, 53. Abaft the Beam impelling breezes blow.
1857. Sherard Osborn, Quedah, ii. 31. A little cabin, which I saw abaft the mainmast.
1860. Maury, Phys. Geog. Sea, xv. 642. The wind is aft, through the north-east just abaft the beam.
