[Of unknown origin; it has been conjectured to be a mispronunc. of FORCE (cf. dispoge for dispose), or a transferred use of FORGE v.1, with allusion to the effect of repeated blows of a sledge hammer.]
1. intr. Of a vessel: To make way, ‘shoot ahead’ (Adm. Smyth), esp. by mere momentum, or the pressure of tide. Often with ahead; also with along, off, on; and with cognate obj.
The first quot. seems, from the elaborate nautical imagery of the context, to be a fig. example of this sense, though so much earlier than any other known instance.
[1611. Speed, Hist. Gt. Brit., IX. xix. 715. For albeit the Barke of his begunne aduentures, had without perill well passed the straightes, and now got sea-roome to spread faile at will; yet being [printed benig] vnder gale, and at fortunes dispose, he feared the gust of euery wind…. His inward study therefore still forged, howsoeuer his outward countenance was carried to cleare his passage by taking those dangerous lets away.]
1769. Falconer, Dict. Marine (1789), Franchir une roche, to pass over, or forge off from a rock.
1779. Forrest, Voy. N. Guinea, 22. As she forged on without any sail, I instantly took out the piece of wood which secured the fore bamboo of the tripod mast, near the stem, and let the mast fall.
1830. Marryat, King’s Own, xvi. The latter [frigate], anxious in his crippled state for the support of the batteries, which had already seriously injured his opponent, continued to forge in shore. Ibid. (1833), P. Simple, xxxv. The four-decker forged ahead.
1849. De Quincey, Eng. Mail-coach, Dream-fugue, Wks. IV. 344. Off she forged without a shock.
1886. J. H. McCarthy, Doom, 20. Gazing with wistful intensity at the busy town and the low shore which seemed to diminish with every second as the Atlantis slowly forged her way out to sea.
transf. and fig. 1861. F. Metcalfe, in The Saturday Review, XII. 14 Sept., 280/1. Presently he drops behind, and I take advantage of the lull in the tempest to forge ahead.
1887. Pall Mall G., 2 Feb., 11/1. Canada is ‘forging ahead,’ as they say in the North.
1887. Jessopp, Arcady, viii. 223. The artizan who forges ahead in the great race in the towns is, I believe, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred a born townsman.
1893. F. Hall, in Academy, 25 March, 266/3. No good reason is obvious why our little Tellus, though ever so crank, should not forge along till the year 2000.
2. trans. (See quot.)
1815. Falconer’s Dict. Marine (ed. Burney), To Forge over, is to force a ship violently over a shoal, by the effort of a great quantity of sail.
