tafferel

Noun

tafferel (plural tafferels)

1. A carved panel.
2. The flat upper part of a ship's stern above the transom, often decorated with carvings.
3. The taffrail.
   • A true Chinese junk is a great curiosity; the model must have been taken originally from a bread-trough, being broad and square at both ends—when light, (I speak of a large one,) it is full thirty feet from the surface of the water to the tafferel, or the highest part of the poop.1837, Edmund Roberts, chapter XVIII, in Embassy to the eastern courts of Cochin-China, Siam, and Muscat in the U. S. sloop-of-war Peacock, David Geisinger, Commander, during the years 1832-3-4, New...
   • Yet we should oftener look over the tafferel of our craft, like curious passengers, and not make the voyage like stupid sailors picking oakum.1854, Henry David Thoreau, chapter XVIII, in Walden, New York: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co, published 1910, pages 422–3