mallemaroking

[prettygoodword]

mallemaroking (mal-uh-muh-ROK-ing) - n., (naut.) the carousing of seamen on board a Greenland whaling ship.


Sometimes specified while said ships are icebound. Yes, there is a word for this very specific thing, and see here for a sighting of it being used in the wild. To be clear, that means a ship in the waters around Greenland, not originating from Greenland. The origin is unclear, sort of -- all sources agree that it's probably from Dutch (the sailors who used it believed this, too) but what word is disputed, though all possible sources do include the root mal, foolish/silly.

---L.

Comments

[flwyd]

The metafilter post seems to suggest that use isn't limited to Greenland whaling, since it was used to describe Shackleton's crew.

[prettygoodword]

Heh. I almost marked that usage as "non-standard" but decided the pedantry would mess with the sentence flow too much too be worth it.