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Mizzen   Listen
adjective
Mizzen  adj.  (Naut.) Hindmost; nearest the stern; as, the mizzen shrouds, sails, etc.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Mizzen" Quotes from Famous Books



... all the men being on the yards with their hats in their hands. The Prince had had arranged on the deck a chapel, decked with flags and trophies of arms, the altar being placed at the foot of the mizzen-mast. The coffin, carried by our sailors, passed between two ranks of officers with drawn swords, and was placed on the quarter-deck. The absolution was pronounced by the Abbe Coquereau the same evening. Next day, at ten o'clock, ...
— The Second Funeral of Napoleon • William Makepeace Thackeray (AKA "Michael Angelo Titmarch")

... what I would do," said the captain: "I would have none of your fancy rigs with the man driving from the mizzen cross-trees, but a plain fore-and-aft hack cab of the highest registered tonnage. First of all, I would bring up at the market and get a turkey and a sucking-pig. Then I'd go to a wine-merchant's and get a dozen of champagne, and a dozen of some sweet wine, rich and sticky and strong, something ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson

... now began to put on an aspect very different from what they had lately worn; the news that the ship had almost lost its mizzen, and that we had procured very fine clouted cream and fresh bread and butter from the shore, restored health and spirits to our women, and we all sat down to a very cheerful breakfast. But, however pleasant our stay promised to be here, we were ...
— Journal of A Voyage to Lisbon • Henry Fielding

... we were very greatly excited, and stood upon the thwarts that we might get better view of her. Thus I saw her a great way in from the edge of the weed, and I noted that her foremast was gone near to the deck, and she had no main topmast; though, strangely enough, her mizzen stood unharmed. And beyond this, I could make out but little, because of the distance; though the sun, which was upon our larboard side, gave me some sight of her hull, but not much, because of the weed in which she was deeply embedded; yet it seemed to me that ...
— The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" • William Hope Hodgson

... in Sir Wycherly, in a resigned manner; "here have I lived fourscore years on this coast, and, for the life of me, I have never been able to tell a fore-royal from a back-royal; or a mizzen head-stay from a head mizzen-stay. They are the most puzzling things imaginable; and now I cannot discover how you know that yonder sail, which I see plain enough, is a royal, any more than that it is ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper

... a wireless apparatus which had been specially installed for her polar voyage. The aerials stretched from her main to mizzen mast and a small room, formerly a storeroom, below the raised poop containing the cabins had been fitted up for a wireless room. In this the boys had spent a good deal of time during their convalescence from sea-sickness and had managed to "pick-up" many vessels within ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton

... phrase; and this belief received color from the fact that a little before, in his feverish fancy, he had been capturing a Spanish galleon, and had got about to the part of the affair where the sheering up of a plank midway between the main and mizzen masts, for the accommodation of the Spaniards in leaving their vessel, would be appropriate. Thinking the matter over calmly afterwards, and in the light of subsequent events, she came to the conclusion that he was trying to tell her how and where his treasure ...
— Our Pirate Hoard - 1891 • Thomas A. Janvier

... seen that she was a long time "out"; her sails, not yet all furled, were old and weather-worn; her sides badly needed paint; and as she rose and fell with the swell, she showed barnacles and "grass" below the water-line. At her mizzen-peak flew the American ensign, and at the ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace

... to act, see? This ere," he continued, smacking the bulwark, "is His—Majesty's—ship—Tremendous, well known and respected between the Lizard and the Nore. Not lookin her sauciest just now, I grant you: shrouds tore to tatters, mizzen spliced, bowsprit splintered, plugged fore and aft, and alf her weather bulwark carried away. But that's ex tempore, as the sayin is. We only put in at dawn to refit, ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant

... and the remainder lay for the most part shattered hulks at Cadiz. By this battle the supremacy of Great Britain at sea was finally established. Nelson, who, during the ship-to-ship engagement which followed his penetration of the enemy's line, was mortally wounded by a sharp-shooter from the mizzen-top of the Redoutable, died before the battle was over, though he was spared to hear that a complete victory was secure. His death is among the heroic incidents of history, and his last achievement, both in its conception and its results, was the fitting climax of his fame. ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick

... the blending process already gone through with. We need not dip for this so far into the tar-bucket as to bother (nautice, "galley") the landsman. We will take terms familiar to all. The three masts of a ship are known as "fore," "main," and "mizzen." Of these, the first is English, the second Norman-French, the third Italian (mezzano). To go from masts to sails, we have "duck" from the Swedish duk, and "canvas" from the Mediterranean languages,—from the root canna, a cane or reed,—thence ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various

... of his house, and there was a tall, gallant ship, with royals and skysails set, bending over before the strong afternoon breeze, and coming rapidly round the point. Her yards were braced sharp up; every sail was set, and drew well; the stars and stripes were flying from her mizzen-peak, and, having the tide in her favor, she came up like a race-horse. It was nearly six months since a new vessel had entered San Diego, and, of course, every one was wide awake. She certainly ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana

... fore and after braces, Mr. Broadrick; brace the fore and mizzen yards sharp up, leave the main braces fast, and lay the main topsail to the mast. As she comes to the wind let the jibs run down." He turned to the man at the wheel, ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer

... shelter of the cabin. O'Brien, the boy, who was only fifteen, took turns with Mahoney on the freezing perch. It was the boy, at three in the afternoon, who called down that he had sighted a sail. This did bring them from the cabin, and they crowded the poop rail and weather mizzen shrouds as they watched the strange ship. But its course did not lie near, and when it disappeared below the skyline, they returned shivering to the cabin, not one offering to relieve the ...
— When God Laughs and Other Stories • Jack London

... mile, a third and larger vessel came sweeping into view, her two rows of ports showing her to be a line-of-battle ship. Barely was she clear of the land when a string of small flags broke out from her mizzen rigging, and almost as if by magic, the yard arms of all three vessels were alive with men, and royals, top gallants, and mainsails with machine-like precision were dewed up and furled, and each ship, stripped of all ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford

... of wind stirred the little flag that drooped from the mizzen-peak, and the clamorous, ceaseless-cries of sea-birds, added to the merry shouts and laughter of the men as they followed the restless football, rendered the whole a scene of life, as it was emphatically ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne

... yarns respecting the hardships of a sea life—what a horrible bore it was to keep night watches, or any watch at all, and you are sure, said one of them, to catch the fever and ague after you have been four hours walking under the draught of the mizzen stay-sail; and, added another, to be mast-headed for three hours with your face to windward by those tyrants, the second and third lieutenants. They both ought to be turned out of the Service for tyranny ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman

... one o'clock p. m. the wind, which was at N.W., blew with such strength as obliged us to take in all our sails, to strike top-gallant-masts, and to get the spritsail-yard in. And I thought proper to wear, and lie-to, under a mizzen-stay-sail, with the ships' heads to the N.E. as they would bow the sea, which ran prodigiously high, better on ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr

... fear of lion or of tiger (in imprisonment) And in an awful storm at sea she asked the mate what mizzen meant; It was a plucky act; if I'd neglected to report it you'd Never have known the depth and true dimensions of her fortitude. If you remain agnostic, if you hold it still not proven, I'll Give fifty more examples ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, January 21st, 1920 • Various

... was the Mary of the Tower, and she had a frightful list to starboard. So canted was she that her mainyard dipped one of its steel sickles into the glassy water, and, had her foremast remained, or more than the broken stump of her bonaventure mizzen, she must have turned over completely. Many days ago they had stripped the mainyard of its course, and had passed the sail under the Mary's bottom, in the hope that it would stop the leak. This it had ...
— Widdershins • Oliver Onions

... Miss Prince has treated me handsome right straight along," the old sailor explained, while the inspector, thinking this not a safe subject to continue, spoke suddenly about some fault of the galley; and after this was discussed, the eyes of the two practiced men sought the damaged mizzen mast, the rigging of which was hanging in snarled and broken lengths. When Nan asked for some account of the accident, she was told with great confidence that the Highflyer had been fouled, and that it was the other vessel's fault; at which she was no wiser than before, ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett

... way: Night, clouds racing overhead, wind howling, royals set, and the ship rushing on in the dark, an immense white sheet of foam level with the lee rail. Mr. P-, in charge of the deck, hooked on to the windward mizzen rigging in a state of perfect serenity; myself, the third mate, also hooked on somewhere to windward of the slanting poop, in a state of the utmost preparedness to jump at the very first hint of some sort of order, ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad

... wife to the cabin he followed me threateningly to the break of the poop. What struck me most, however, was the conduct of his chum, who was sober, but in a very unusual, high, gleeful mood. It was knock-off time when I came along to where he was seizing off the mizzen topgallant backstay, the last of the work of refitting the late pampeiro damage; and the mate being elsewhere engaged, I gave the usual order to quit work. "Knock off," I said to the man, "and put away your tools. The ...
— Voyage of the Liberdade • Captain Joshua Slocum

... apparently recovered herself whilst settling down. She was greatly damaged, both in hull and rigging; the spar-deck and forecastle being swept away, and her main deck blown up in midships, very possibly through the explosion of her boilers. Her bowsprit and mizzen-mast were gone, as was also her fore topmast; and the mainmast, with topmast and all attached, was leaning aft, and so far over the side that the observers would not have been surprised to see ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood

... that our adventurer began his charge. The unknown knight was so sensible of the seasonable interposition, that, riding up to our hero, "Brother," said he, "this is the second time you have holp me off, when I was bump ashore.—Bess Mizzen, I must say, is no more than a leaky bum-boat, in comparison of the glorious galley you want to man. I desire that henceforth we may cruise in the same latitudes, brother; and I'll be d—ned if I don't stand by you as long as I have a stick standing, or ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett

... following days 112, 57, and 92 knots respectively. While hove-to in this gale the canvas was severely punished. All the lower sails were more or less damaged, and sail was reduced to storm trysails. Two large barques were passed lying-to under lower main topsails and mizzen storm staysails. At dawn on the 2nd of December Fayal ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey

... to the derelict they were surprised to note that it was the same vessel that had run from them a few weeks earlier. Her forestaysail and mizzen spanker were set as though an effort had been made to hold her head up into the wind, but the sheets had parted, and the sails were tearing to ribbons in ...
— Tarzan of the Apes • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... to a gale. The trawls were up now, and the fleet lay to. It may be explained that this operation is performed by bringing a ship nearly into the eye of the wind, and then hauling the foresail across, and belaying the sheet. The aft sail—or mizzen—is then hauled tight, and the tiller lashed amidships. As the fore-sail pays the vessel off from the wind, the after sail brings her up again; and she is thus kept nearly head to sea, and the crew go below, and ...
— For Name and Fame - Or Through Afghan Passes • G. A. Henty

... with him owing to what had happened, and I looked down at him as he ate, for I could see him very well as I stood near the mizzen on the port side of the cabin skylight. The glass of the hatch was raised to let the cabin air, and I watched the bushy head beneath, with its aggressive beard bending over the dirty table-cloth. The large squat nose seemed to sniff the good grub as the steward served ...
— Mr. Trunnell • T. Jenkins Hains

... fine fellow," said Richardson, the foreman, as they stood on the deck of the Buss holding on to the mizzen shrouds, "it's quite clear to me that with the wind dead against them like this, the relief boat with Hill's company won't be able to get off, and as we're short of provisions, I mean to take the big yawl and go ashore with my gang. As the best men are always chosen for posts of danger, ...
— The Story of the Rock • R.M. Ballantyne

... possibility of our being of any further service, I ordered the ships to withdraw to their former moorings." Besides the casualties among the crew, and severe damage to the hull, the Bristol's mainmast, with nine cannon-balls in it, had to be shortened, while the mizzen-mast was condemned. The injury to the frigates was immaterial, owing to the ...
— The Major Operations of the Navies in the War of American Independence • A. T. Mahan

... that day, a sailor at work on the mizzen-topsail yard of an English ship moored within the distance of a cable's length from the Dolphin, accidentally fell from the yard. As he fell he caught hold of the main brace, and was suspended for a minute over the water. There was quite a commotion on the deck of the ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper

... considerably less, and the sailors were enabled to walk upon deck with some degree of freedom. But, to the astonishment of every one, it was soon discovered that the floating light was adrift! The windlass was instantly manned, and the men soon gave out that there was no strain upon the cable. The mizzen sail, which was bent for the occasional purpose of making the vessel ride more easily to the tide, was immediately set, and the other sails were also hoisted in a short time, when, in no small consternation, we bore away about ...
— Records of a Family of Engineers • Robert Louis Stevenson

... watched the twilight, And the glimmer of the skylight, That shot across the deck; And the binnacle pale and steady, And the dull glimpse of the dead-eye, And the sparks in fiery eddy That whirled from the chimney neck. In our jovial floating prison There was sleep from fore to mizzen, And never a star had risen The hazy ...
— Ballads • William Makepeace Thackeray

... had thus twice spared, he received his death. A ball fired from her mizzen-top, which, in the then situation of the two vessels, was not more than fifteen yards from that part of the deck where he was standing, struck the epaulette on his left shoulder,—about a quarter after one, just in the heat of the action. He fell upon his face, on the spot which ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester

... was unbroken from stem to stern. There was no cabin, poop, camboose, or other house on deck, and the eye had a clean range over the whole length of her. There was a skylight between the fore and the main mast, and another between the main and mizzen masts, to afford light and air to the apartments below. There were three openings in the deck by which entrance could be obtained to the interior of the ship: the fore hatch, the main hatch, and the companion-way, the two former being ...
— Outward Bound - Or, Young America Afloat • Oliver Optic

... the Captain was crippled, "her wheel and foretopmast gone and not a sail or rope left". She was engaged by several of the enemy, particularly by the San Nicolas (80) and the San Josef (112), whose mizzen-mast she had shot away. Collingwood pushed his ship, the Excellent (74), between her and the San Nicolas, gave the Spaniard a broadside within pistol shot, and passed on. The San Nicolas "luffing and the San Josef's mizzen-mast ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt

... on deck, I found the ship driving fast down Channel, making an excellent passage. I took up my place by the mizzen-rigging, near which there were no seamen at work, so that I could puzzle out a new hiding-place for my letters. I noticed, as I stood there, that some men were getting a boat over the side. It seemed a queer thing to be doing in the Channel, ...
— Martin Hyde, The Duke's Messenger • John Masefield

... went well until she got into latitude 37 deg. or 38 deg. south, and a little to the eastward of the Cape of Good Hope, when suddenly one night, when running before a strong gale, she came crushing into ice. The shock was so severe that her fore and main topmasts and mizzen-topgallant masts went by the board, and the foremast-head sprung. The hull was considerably shattered, and the main covering-board split up from forward as far aft as ...
— Notes by the Way in A Sailor's Life • Arthur E. Knights

... Simon Nishikanta tore himself away from his everlasting painting of all colour-delicacies of sea and sky such as are painted by seminary maidens, to be helped and hoisted up the ratlines of the mizzen rigging, the huge bulk of him, by two grinning, slim-waisted sailors, until they lashed him squarely on the crosstrees and left him to stare with eyes of golden desire, across the sun-washed sea through the finest pair of unredeemed binoculars that had ever been ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London

... in bas relief, which give a lively air to the otherwise sombre and vacant expression, and beneath the cabin-windows is painted the name of the ship, and her port of register. The lower masts of this vessel are short and stout, the top-masts are of great height, the extreme points of the fore and mizzen-royal poles, are adorned with gilt balls, and over all, at the truck of the main sky-sail pole, floats a handsome red burgee, upon which a large G is visible. There are no yards across but the lower and topsail-yards, which ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various

... by the mizzen window looks sort of familiar to me. The one that stood up to shake a day-day to whoever was passin'. Hum! He's made a hit, ain't he? I expect some unprotected female's heart broke at that signal. ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln

... on. Meantime in common with the rest of the shipping in that Eastern port, I was left in no doubt as to Hermann's notions of hygienic clothing. Evidently he believed in wearing good stout flannel next his skin. On most days little frocks and pinafores could be seen drying in the mizzen rigging of his ship, or a tiny row of socks fluttering on the signal halyards; but once a fortnight the family washing was exhibited in force. It covered the poop entirely. The afternoon breeze ...
— Falk • Joseph Conrad

... sprang upon the bulwarks and held on by the mizzen-shrouds, a strange little figure with flying skirts and puckered eyes. The lean lieutenant craned his neck and whispered to Smeaton, the second, while officers and men came popping up from below and clustered along the weather-rail, shading their eyes with their hands—for ...
— The Great Shadow and Other Napoleonic Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle

... a fleet, of which there are in Britain three grades—admirals, vice-admirals, and rear-admirals, the first displaying his flag on the main mast, the second on the fore, and the third on the mizzen. ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... quite in the enemy's power to fulfil his other prediction, by keeping Hotham in hot water during the winter. In the middle of November the "Agamemnon" had to go to Leghorn for extensive repairs, and remained there, shifting her main and mizzen masts, until the 21st of December. Nelson, who had endured with unyielding cheerfulness the dangers, exposure, and sickliness of Calvi, found himself unable to bear patiently the comfort of quiet nights ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan

... to distinguish anything clearly, until close to the wreck. Then it was seen that the whole crew had taken to the rigging of the mainmast—the topmast of which had been carried away by the fall of the foremast and mizzen. ...
— Jeff Benson, or the Young Coastguardsman • R.M. Ballantyne

... like to overblow, we took in our sprit-sail, and stood by to hand the foresail; but making foul weather, we looked the guns were all fast, and handed the mizzen. ...
— Gulliver's Travels - Into Several Remote Regions of the World • Jonathan Swift

... the mackerel line; my catch, nil. Such an occurrence makes one very respectful towards the fisherman who singlehanded can sail his boat and manage five mackerel lines at once—one on the thwart to lew'ard and one to wind'ard; a bobber on the mizzen halyard and two bobbers on poles projecting from the boat. He must keep his hands on five lines, the tiller and the sheet; his eyes on the boat's course, the sea, the weather and the luff of the ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds

... ship had spencer masts and trysails on fore and main, and a spencer mast on the mizzen for a spanker; he illustrates these as having royal poles, but with no royal yards crossed.[9] The smokestack is described as pivoted. The mainstay is double, setting up at deck, near rail, and forward of the foremost shrouds ...
— The Pioneer Steamship Savannah: A Study for a Scale Model - United States National Museum Bulletin 228, 1961, pages 61-80 • Howard I. Chapelle

... the gun next to Bulger's. It had just been reloaded. He bade the gun captain, in a low tone, to move aside. Then, with a glance to see that the priming was in order, he took careful sight, and waiting until the grab's main, mizzen and foremasts opened to view altogether, he applied the match. The shot sped true, and a second later the grab's mainmast, with sails and rigging, went by ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang

... of brightness fell upon me in the barrel, and looking up, I found the moon had risen and was silvering the mizzen-top and shining white on the luff of the fore-sail; and almost at the same time the voice of the lookout ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson

... on to the floor, fell about the cabin as he pulled on his sea-boots and climbed up the companion. He clung to the mizzen-runners in a night of extraordinary blackness. To port and to starboard the lights of the smacks rose on the crests and sank in the troughs, with such violence they had the air of being tossed up into the ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason

... the main and mizzen sheets!" ordered the captain, to bring the yacht round and get a leeward launch for Nos. ...
— Swirling Waters • Max Rittenberg

... quarter of the enemy, in the expectation that my admiral would do the same on the other side, as he was perfectly able to do. At the first volley from the artillery and arquebuses I swept the deck of the enemy, unrigged his main and mizzen masts, sent his yards and shrouds into the sea, burned his sails, and won and took into my power the flag at the topmast, the standard and flag at the stern, and the others which the ship bore. Then I sent on board of him a band of men with arms and a banner of infantry, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume XI, 1599-1602 • Various

... craft, short and squat, with high, upstanding bows, prominent wheelhouses, and stumpy mizzen-masts abaft all. They hailed from many ports and still bore the letters and numbers of their peace-time vocation: F.D. for Fleetwood, G.Y. for Grimsby, B.F. for Banff, and P.D. for Peterhead. They were steam herring ...
— Stand By! - Naval Sketches and Stories • Henry Taprell Dorling

... extent of its small ability. And the Bag is an excellent anchorage after all, but not if you happen to get your best anchor foul of its chain. We hauled up, cleared, warped down to the buoy; and then, hoisting mizzen and headsails, cast loose and worked back to ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... mizzen-mast. Some officers were already perched on the mast-heads. At eight o'clock the fog lay heavily on the waves, and its thick scrolls rose little by little. The horizon grew wider and clearer at the same time. Suddenly, just as on the day before, ...
— Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea • Jules Verne

... ammunition for the garrison. On the other hand, the decks of the attacking vessels were swept by fire from the cliffs. One shot carried away the ensign of the flag-ship, and another tore away her rigging and shattered her mizzen, and the rest of the fleet was ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan

... of the navy of France was signed and sealed by the fight of Trafalgar. In the heat of the action, a ball, fired from the mizzen-top of the Redoubtable, struck Admiral Nelson on the left shoulder, when he instantly fell. "They have done for me, at last, Hardy," said ...
— Thrilling Stories Of The Ocean • Marmaduke Park

... hands! Take in the studding-sl's and stow the flying jib.' It was time; the squall was on us, and the vessel began to heel. 'Ah,' said the captain, 'we have still too much canvas set; all hands lower the mains'l!' Five minutes after, it was down; and we sailed under mizzen-tops'ls and to'gall'nt sails. 'Well, Penelon,' said the captain, 'what makes you shake your head?' 'Why,' I says, 'I still think you've got too much on.' 'I think you're right,' answered he, 'we shall have a gale.' 'A gale? More ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... may possibly have been the one Cook encountered on the 28th off the north end of the island. They were blown out of sight of land on the 13th, the main topsail being split, and next day both fore and mizzen topsails were lost, but they managed to bring up under shelter of a small island off Knuckle Point. On the 15th the latitude was found to be 34 degrees 6 minutes South, with land visible to the south-west, and a large swell was coming from the west, so Cook concluded this was the most northerly ...
— The Life of Captain James Cook • Arthur Kitson

... one at the stern, This one makes oars, and that one cordage twists, Another mends the mainsail and the mizzen; ...
— Divine Comedy, Longfellow's Translation, Hell • Dante Alighieri

... boards, or other equivalent devices for the same specific purpose, in the extreme bow and stern of vessels, that is to say, the placing of the said boards forward of the foremast or aft of the mainmast, in two masted vessels, and forward of the foremast and aft of the mizzen mast in three masted vessels, substantially as shown and described, and for the objects and ...
— Scientific American, Vol. 17, No. 26 December 28, 1867 • Various

... round and canister, swept the proud Don from stem to stern, while through the white cloud of smoke the musket-balls, and the still deadlier cloth-yard arrows, whistled and rushed upon their venomous errand. Down went the steersman, and every soul who manned the poop. Down went the mizzen topmast, in went the stern-windows and quarter-galleries; and as the smoke cleared away, the gorgeous painting of the Madre Dolorosa, with her heart full of seven swords, which, in a gilded frame, bedizened the Spanish stern, was shivered in splinters; while, most glorious of all, the ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley

... excellence the modern artistic picture of the MAY-FLOWER, although somewhat fanciful, and its rig, as Captain Collies observes, "is that of a ship a century later than the MAY-FLOWER; a square topsail on the mizzen," he notes, "being unknown in the early part of the seventeenth century, and a jib on a ship equally rare." Halsall's picture of "The Arrival of the MAY-FLOWER in Plymouth Harbor," owned by the Pilgrim Society, of Plymouth, and hung in the Society's Hall, ...
— The Mayflower and Her Log, Complete • Azel Ames

... thot she would no break un passun' us. But ut was no tull be. Ot the last, when she rose up like a mountain, curlun' above the stern an' blottun' out the sky, the mates scattered, the second an' third runnun' for the mizzen-shrouds an' climbun' up, but the first runnun' tull the wheel tull lend a hond. He was a brave men, thot Samuel Henan. He run straight un tull the face o' thot father o' all waves, no thunkun' on humself but thunkun' only o' the shup. The two men ...
— The Strength of the Strong • Jack London

... however, and we saw no signs of its abating. The rigging was found to be ill-fitted and greatly strained; and on the third day of the blow, about five in the afternoon, our mizzen-mast, in a heavy lurch to windward, went by the board. For an hour or more we tried in vain to get rid of it, on account of the prodigious rolling of the ship; and, before we had succeeded, the carpenter came aft and announced four feet water in the hold. To add to our dilemma, ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery - Riddle Stories • Various

... Rose had the wind on her quarter, her best point of sailing, and she was covered with canvas from her trucks to her decks, from her spritsail yard to her huge mizzen crossjack, a lateen sail. The wind was light, but she was making rapid progress toward the approaching strangers, who, with their larboard tacks aboard, were beating up ...
— Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer - A Romance of the Spanish Main • Cyrus Townsend Brady

... driving the mules, and that's Bowsprit—the one all black from the coal. Cutwater's the girl leaning over the stern; Maintop, the one with the three pigtails; and Mizzen, the towhead playing ...
— Half-Past Seven Stories • Robert Gordon Anderson

... delay. The masters were then sent aloft to help the midshipmen unravel the snarl, but they succeeded no better. It was evident enough to all the officers that this confusion could not have been created without an intention to do it. An accident might have happened on the main or the mizzen-mast, but not on every yard on all three of ...
— Down the Rhine - Young America in Germany • Oliver Optic

... maintopgallantsail-yard, upper maintopgallantsail-yard, main royal-yard and skysail-yard; on the foremast we have the fore-yard, then the topsail-yards, topgallantsail-yards and royal; and on the mizzenmast we have a similar series of yards, beginning with the mizzen or crossjack. ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XIII, Nov. 28, 1891 • Various

... descended. The first had her wheel carried away, and her hull much damaged, but escaped with the loss of only three men. A stone shot penetrated the second, between the poop and quarter deck, badly injured the mizzen-mast, carried away the wheel, and did other serious damage, killing and wounding twenty men. Two shot struck the third, carrying away her shrouds and injuring her masts; loss in killed and wounded, ...
— Elements of Military Art and Science • Henry Wager Halleck

... of jargon, intelligible only to a sailor, which would take the light yard men aloft, furl the sail, and probably cast reflections on the stowage of the bunt. Anything connected with the anchor was a kick. The mainmast was consecrated to the left half, and the mizzen to the fullback. ...
— Football Days - Memories of the Game and of the Men behind the Ball • William H. Edwards

... was determined by watching when the crest of the wave was on a level with the observer's eye (the height above the trough of the sea being known) either while standing on the poop or in the mizzen rigging; this must be reduced to one half to obtain the absolute height of the wave above the mean level of the sea. The length and velocity were found by noting the time taken by the wave to traverse the measured distance (100 yards) between the ship and the spar ...
— Narrative Of The Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By The Late Captain Owen Stanley, R.N., F.R.S. Etc. During The Years 1846-1850. Including Discoveries And Surveys In New Guinea, The Louisiade • John MacGillivray

... as Luka had been able to obtain a sheave at Turukhansk. The sail was a lug made of sheeting, oiled, and the boat carried beside a triangular sail of very much smaller dimensions and stouter cloth for heavy weather. She also carried a small mizzen mast and sail. In rough weather the cockpit could be completely covered with a light apron with openings where the rowers sat, with a sort of collar, which could be lashed tightly round their waists. ...
— Condemned as a Nihilist - A Story of Escape from Siberia • George Alfred Henty



Words linked to "Mizzen" :   mast, mizzenmast, mizen, mizzen course, fore-and-aft sail, mizenmast



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