Word.ws English Dictionary

athwartships

athwartships adverb: across the vessel sideways, i.e. in a direction at right angles to the fore-and-aft line of the vessel.

Adverb

athwartships (not comparable)

  1. Across the vessel sideways, i.e. in a direction at right angles to the fore-and-aft line of the vessel.
    • to place / fix / stow something athwartships; to pace the bridge athwartships
    • At all times except when whales were alongside, this bench was securely lashed athwartships against the rear of the Try-works.1851 November 14, Herman Melville, chapter 107, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC, page 519

Forms of athwartships

alternative formathwartship
alternative formthwartships

Origin of athwartships

From athwart (“across”) + ship + -s as an adverbial ending.

Questions about athwartships

What does athwartships mean?
Athwartships means across the vessel sideways, i.e. in a direction at right angles to the fore-and-aft line of the vessel.
What part of speech is athwartships?
Athwartships is an adverb.

Words near athwartships in the dictionary

  1. ATHs
  2. Athulivarufinolhu
  3. Athurugau
  4. athwart
  5. athwartship
  6. athwartships
  7. athwartwise
  8. Athy
  9. athymhormia
  10. athymhormic
  11. athymia

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: athwartships (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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