172 H. L. BROOMALL : COLLOQUIAL SHIP NAMES. 



monitor and tina-boat, originally proper names, are now names 

 of kinds of vessels. 



In nautical nomenclature ship and bark have particular 

 technical meanings, though their almost indiscriminate use 

 ashore, and such compounds as shipmate, embark and the like, 

 perhaps indicate that formerly their meanings were more gen- 

 eral. Bark, however, is used for any kind of vessel by the 

 poets, doubtless owing to its convenience for rhyme, and the 

 sailor, familiarly, affectionately, and perhaps no less poeti- 

 call}^ applies the diminutive ba?-kie to a favorite vessel or that 

 to which he belongs. Indeed, vessels, though too comprehen- 

 sive, is the only term strictly applicable to any kind of craft 

 — except the very term just slipped from the pen. Anything 

 intended to float and move by pole, oar, sail or steam, is 

 known to the sailor as c?-aft. Resorting again to analog3^ as 

 French bdtime?it is a building and particularly a vessel, and if 

 craft is from Anglo-Saxon crcrftan, to build, the "guess" 

 \h2iX fj-igate is from l^dXvix fabric ata (sc. navis) is worthy of 

 consideration. Tacitus uses the Latin word in reference to 

 shipbuilding in Annales 14, 29: " Paullinus Seutonius . . . . 

 naves fabricatur. " 



