Obs. [f. FORE- pref. + DECK sb.] The deck at the fore-part of a ship; the fore-part of the deck.
1565. Golding, Ovid’s Met., III. (1593), 76.
| The God then dalying with these mates, as though he had at last | |
| Begon to smell their suttle craft, out of the foredecke cast | |
| His eye upon the Sea. |
1653. H. Cogan, trans. Pinto’s Trav., xx. 73. The remainder of them, beginning to faint, retired in disorder towards the foredeck, with an intent to fortifie themselves there.
1747. Carte, Hist. Eng., I. 306. The king hereupon invented a new kind of ship of the nature of a galley, longer, larger, and steadier than the Danish vessels, as well as higher, at least at the stern and on the foredeck; whence his men could lance their javelins, as from the higher ground, with greater force upon the enemy.
fig. 1637. Gillespie, Eng.-Pop. Cerem., Ep. B. iij. Because the foredecke and hindecke of all our Opposites probations, doe resolve and rest finally into the Auctority of a Law, and Auctority they use as a sharpe knife to cut every Gordian knot which they can not unloose, and as a dreadfull pale to sound so loud in all ears, that reason can not be heard.
