adv., a. and sb. Naut.
A. adv.
1. Of position: In or at both bow and stern; hence, along the length of or all over the ship.
1627. Capt. Smith, Seaman’s Gram., xiii. 61. Boy, fetch my Cellar of Bottels, a Health to you all fore and aft, courage my hearts for a fresh Charge.
1743. Bulkeley & Cummins, Voy. S. Seas, 9. My Rigging is all gone, and broke fore and aft, and my People almost all taken ill, and down.
1793. Smeaton, Edystone L., § 123. She had been heightened four Streakes; her deck raised, and laid flush fore and aft; so that if a sea was to break upon her, there would be no lodgment for the water.
1822. G. W. Manby, Journal of a Voyage to Greenland, in the Year 1821 (1823), 63. The same wave struck the ships, Perseverance and Rockingham, by which one of the quater-boats of the latter was thrown upon the deck, and the bulwark, fore and aft, was washed away.
1835. Marryat, Pirate, vii. Awnings were spread fore and aft to protect the crew from the powerful rays of the sun.
2. Of motion or direction: Alternately towards the bow and stern, backwards and forwards.
1726. Shelvocke, Voy. round World, 394–5. We in the ship were from morning till night so incommoded by them [Indians] that we could hardly move fore and aft through the throng of them.
1840. R. H. Dana, Bef. Mast, xxiii. 73. I was called to stand my watch, and, coming on deck, found him there before me; and we began, as usual, to walk fore and aft, in the waist.
1865. Livingstone, Zambesi, vi. 151. Every night they [rats] went fore and aft, rousing with impartial feet every sleeper, and laughing to scorn the aimless blows, growls, and deadly rushes of outraged humanity.
3. From stem to stern, lengthwise.
a. 1618. [see AFT 2 c].
1709. Lond. Gaz., No. 4543/2. He … raked her fore and aft with his Cannon.
1823. J. Badcock, Dom. Amusem., 208. The pontons should be … sharpish fore and aft.
1867. Smyth, Sailor’s Word-bk., Fore-and-aft.… It also implies in a line with the keel; and is the opposite of athwart-ships, which is from side to side.
B. adj. (usu. with hyphens). Placed or directed in the line of the vessel’s length. Of sails (see quot. 1867); hence, of a vessel rigged with such sails. Also Comb. fore-and-aft rigged ppl. adj.
1820. Scoresby, Acc. Arctic Reg., II. 197, note. To prevent confusion in speaking of these sails, I have confined the term boom-sails to the new description of courses; and gaff-sails to the fore and aft sails, the tops of which are extended to a gaff.
1834. M. Scott, Cruise Midge (1859), 329. At length I saw her; but as she was stem on, edging down on us, I could not make out more than that she was a large fore-and-aft rigged vessel, decidedly not the Midge.
1856. Farmer’s Mag., X. Nov., 426/1. The Dean Richmond is a fore-and-aft schooner of 380 tons register; her length is 145 feet over all; beam 26 feet; depth of hold 12 feet.
1867. Smyth, Sailor’s Word-bk., Fore-and-aft sails. Jibs, staysails, and gaffsails; in fact, all sails which are not set to yards. They extend from the centre line to the lee side of a ship or boat, so set much flatter than square-sails.
1878. [see AFT 2 c].
1879. Thomson & Tait, Nat. Phil., I. I. § 325, note. ‘Fore-and-aft’ rig is any rig in which (as in ‘cutters’ and ‘schooners’) the chief sails come into the plane of mast or masts and keel, by the action of the wind upon the sails when the vessel’s head is to wind.
C. sb. ? A cap with peaks both before and behind.
1888. E. R. Pennell, Our Journey to the Hebrides, in Harper’s Mag., Sept., 494/1. On the platform were crowds of men in conventional tweed knickerbockers and Norfolk jackets, and women in jockey caps and fore-and-afts.
