BEZANT. An early gold coin, so called from having been first coined at
Byzantium.

BIBBS. Pieces of timber bolted to the hounds of a mast, to support the
trestle-trees.

BIBLE. A hand-axe. Also, a squared piece of freestone to grind the deck
with sand in cleaning it; a small holy-stone, so called from seamen
using them kneeling.

BIBLE-PRESS. A hand rolling-board for cartridges, rocket, and port-fire
cases.

BICKER, OR BEAKER. A flat bowl or basin for containing liquors, formerly
made of wood, but in later times of other substances. Thus Butler:

"And into pikes, and musqueteers,
Stamp beakers, cups, and porringers."

BID-HOOK. A small kind of boat-hook.

BIEL-BRIEF. The bottomry contract in Denmark, Sweden, and the north of
Germany.

BIERLING. An old name for a small galley.

BIFURCATE. A river is said to bifurcate, or to form a fork, when it
divides into two distinct branches, as at the heads of deltas and in
fluvial basins.

BIGHT. A substantive made from the preterperfect tense of _bend_. The
space lying between two promontories or headlands, being wider and
smaller than a gulf, but larger than a bay. It is also used generally
for any coast-bend or indentation, and is mostly held as a synonym of
shallow bay.

BIGHT. The loop of a rope when it is folded, in contradistinction to the
end; as, her anchor hooked the bight of our cable, _i.e._ caught any
part of it between the ends. The bight of his cable has swept our
anchor, _i.e._ the bight of the cable of another ship as she ranged
about has entangled itself about the flukes of our anchor. Any part of
the chord or curvature of a rope between the ends may be called a bight.

BIG-WIGS. A cant term for the higher officers.

BILANCELLA. A destructive mode of fishing in the Mediterranean, by means
of two vessels towing a large net stretched between them.

BILANCIIS DEFERENDIS. A writ directed to a corporation, for the carrying
of weights to such a haven, there to weigh the wool that persons, by our
ancient laws, were licensed to transport.

BILANDER. A small merchant vessel with two masts, particularly
distinguished from other vessels with two masts by the form of her
main-sail, which is bent to the whole length of her yard, hanging fore
and aft, and inclined to the horizon at an angle of about 45 deg. Few
vessels are now rigged in this manner, and the name is rather
indiscriminately used.

BILBO. An old term for a flexible kind of cutlass