Words of the Month - Plain Sailing (Part II)

         English is full of so many idioms with nautical origins that I had to split my selection of them into two posts.  This is the second, so if you want to read about the first half, you can find them at Plain Sailing Part I, which I posted back in September.  And now without further ado, here’s the scuttlebutt on some more…

by and large - sailing alternately into the wind (by) and close to the wind (large).  A vessel sailing by and large is covering a range, giving (from about 1665) a metaphorical sense of “for the most part.”  Note, while we’re here, that we also have the metaphor of sailing close to the wind for doing something risky.

dead in the water - originally a ship without wind, utterly without means to move

take the wind out of someone’s sails - If you block the wind from reaching a ship’s sails (usually by sailing upwind of it), you cause them a sudden loss of movement and momentum.  Indeed, they may be dead in the water.

go by the board - fall overboard, the board in both cases being the side of the ship.  The metaphorical sense of being lost or gone is from around 1835.

cut and run - If you need to sail away so quickly that there isn’t time to pull up the anchor, you might just cut it loose.  This entered general use around 1704.

in the offing - in the more distant part of the open sea as seen from shore.  The original metaphor was the distant future (around 1779), but now (since about 1914) it usually implies something impending.

overbearing - originally of a wind that would blow a ship onto its side, but expanded to any overwhelming and repressive force by around 1560.

rummage sale - In the sixteenth century rummage was to stow cargo in a ship’s hold.  That’s where we get the verb of searching through a whole bunch of stuff (and possibly disarranging it).  By around 1800 a rummage sale was a sale of unclaimed goods from a ship’s cargo, sold at the dock.

toe the line - to stand with your toes at a line drawn on the deck,  demonstrating disciplined obedience, from the early 19th century.  (No, the phrase is not “tow the line,” as I have several times seen it written!)

three sheets to the wind - The sheet is the rope that holds the corner of a sail.  If it’s loose the sail can flap around in the wind, and if the sheets of all three sails are unsecured the ship will be out of control.  (This is one of those idioms that I’ve never actually heard anyone use in real life, although I’ve certainly encountered it in literature.)

under the weather - The earlier version of the phrase was often “under the weather bow,” and the “weather” side of anything is the windward - the side that’s getting hit by the roughest weather.  One theory is that sick sailors went below decks, or under the deck where they’d be out in the weather, but another theory is that anything “under the weather” was being hit by tough circumstances.  Although in my idiom the phrase metaphorically refers to physical illness, many of the earlier usages from the early nineteenth century refer to a wider variety of difficulties.

groggy - I covered this one before, but if you missed it or have forgotten, you can find its nautical origins here.

        As this is the last post of the year, I will end with the wish that despite any anxiety about worrisome changes in the offing, I hope you will weather 2025 on an even keel.  As always, may you find joy and share hope.

[Pictures: The Bachelor’s Delight approaching the San Dominick, woodcut by Patrick de Manceau, 1946 (Image from invaluable);

Fair Winds, rubber block print by AEGNydam, carved ca. 1994, edition printed 2013 (Image from Nydam Prints, now sold out);

Korweta, woodcut by Stanisław Ostoja-Chrostowski, 1936 (Image from Polona).]