orlop

[prettygoodword]

Yanno, I just did a theme week, but I just noticed I have a bunch of nautical jargon on my To Be Posted list, and that'd make a pretty good theme, I think. So -- anchors aweigh!


orlop (AWR-lop) - n., the lowest deck of a ship with four or more decks.


This would be on one of the big sailing ships, like a warship. The orlop was below the water-line, and often used for storing cables. Like much jargon, the exact origin is unclear -- in five dictionaries, I see six suggestions -- but most agree it dates back to at least Middle English overlop, cover for a ship's hold with a sense similar to overlap or to run over, taken from some west Germanic source like Middle Dutch or Middle Low German, and the trail gets fuzzy.

---L.

Comments

[calenorn.livejournal.com]

In books I've read the orlop was the site of the ship surgeon's sick bay, where the wounded might face amputation of a damaged limb with only alcohol for an anesthetic. A place of dread for the average sailor.

[prettygoodword.livejournal.com]

In part because in a warship, you want the trauma center to be somewhere that can't be hit by cannon fire -- below the waterline. That this put it in the darkest, dankest, least-sterile place in the ship was less than completely recognized as a problem.

But, yes, a place of dread for the swabbies.

---L.