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Spanker   Listen
noun
Spanker  n.  
1.
One who spanks, or anything used as an instrument for spanking.
2.
(Naut.) The after sail of a ship or bark, being a fore-and-aft sail attached to a boom and gaff; sometimes called driver.
3.
One who takes long, quick strides in walking; also, a fast horse. (Colloq.)
4.
Something very large, or larger than common; a whopper, as a stout or tall person. (Colloq.)
Spanker boom (Naut.), a boom to which a spanker sail is attached.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Spanker" Quotes from Famous Books



... set the spanker," added the first lieutenant. "Man the outhaul! Cast off the brails, and ...
— Outward Bound - Or, Young America Afloat • Oliver Optic

... scheme in execution; but they only retired to the next room, whence they could overhear the whole conversation: my wife artfully introduced it, by observing, that one of the Miss Flamboroughs was like to have a very good match of it in Mr. Spanker. To this the 'squire assenting, she proceeded to remark, that they who had warm fortunes were always sure of getting good husbands: "But heaven help," continued she, "the girls that have none. What signifies beauty, Mr. ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education

... "A spanker, wasn't she?" continued Dick. "Now, that's what I call a yacht. And hadn't she some swells on board! I met some of them coming up the hill. ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice

... round on a general raid; recovering by force, where persuasion failed, their outstanding loans, and in other cases borrowing additional supplies in the same genial manner. Among other booty, they secured a tin of pressed beef from Spanker, who had to be clouted on the head before he would "lend it," and some sardines from another boy, who was thankful to find any one to take them off ...
— The Cock-House at Fellsgarth • Talbot Baines Reed

... gallops in, spears the peg neatly, and carries it off triumphantly on the point of the lance, after which he rides back and returns the peg to the Assistants as a piece of valuable property of which he has accidentally deprived them) Sergeant SPANKER—eight! (Applause; the Assistants drive in another peg.) Corporal CUTLASH! (Corporal C. enters, strikes the peg, and dislodges without securing it. Immense applause from ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, July 5, 1890 • Various

... the fore sheet, and the steward the main. The second mate had charge of the after yards, and let go the lee fore and main braces. I was stationed at the weather cross-jack braces; three other light hands at the lee; one boy at the spanker-sheet and guy; a man and a boy at the main topsail, top-gallant, and royal braces; and all the rest of the crew— men and boys— tallied on to the main brace. Every one here knew his station, must be there when all hands were called to put ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana

... I am sorry to say I don't exactly know what. I find in my notes, taken shortly afterwards, from the dictation of an intelligent midshipman, "that the fore royal-yard got jammed with the spanker-boom, and carried away the larboard quarter boat." Nautical friends have since pointed out to me that this involves an impossibility. I daresay it does. I know it involved an impossibility of turning ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley

... scant and unhemmed, to avoid all risks when taking fences and hedges in a hunting country, with her chimney-pot hat and her own gold-mounted crop, her knowing little riding-boots and buckskins, with outfit enough for Baby Blake and Di Vernon and Lady Gay Spanker, and to see that young woman dancing in the saddle, now here and now there, pulling at the reins in a manner to make a rocking-horse rear, and squealing tearfully and jerkily: "Oh, ho-ho-oh, wh-h-hat m-m-makes ...
— In the Riding-School; Chats With Esmeralda • Theo. Stephenson Browne

... chiefly lived, and occasionally there were guilty approaches and rencontres, she in her boat, I in mine, both being slight clinker-built Montreux pleasure-boats, which I had spent some days in overhauling and varnishing, mine with jib, fore-and-aft mainsail, and spanker, hers rather smaller, one-masted, with an easy-running lug-sail. It was no uncommon thing for me to sail quite to Geneva, and come back from a seven-days' cruise with my soul filled and consoled with the lake and all its many moods of bright and darksome, ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel

... done, Mr. Mate,' said the pilot, as he come over the side; 'some of these galoots makes us chase 'em half a day afore we can board 'em. Fill away the head-yards, put your helm up, run up the flyin' jib, brail up the spanker check in the arter yards,' and as she swung off he comes aft to the wheel where I was a-steerin', and says, 'Keep her east-sou'east, my man; giv' us a chew of terbacker.' We soon had the muslin piled onto her ag'in, and sure enough, as old Wiggins had said, ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 9 • Various

... midnight diableries. See that fellow yonder! At home, probably a family man, a wearer of mesh underwear, an assiduous devourer of the wisdom of George Harvey, a patron of the dramas of Charles Rann Kennedy, a spanker of children, an entertainer at his board of the visiting clergyman, a pantophagous subscriber, a silk hat wearer—in brief, a leading citizen. See him oleaginate his grin at the sight of a passing painted paver. (To his mind, ...
— Europe After 8:15 • H. L. Mencken, George Jean Nathan and Willard Huntington Wright

... a flag went rapidly up in a roll to the corvette's peak, when, shaking itself clear, it lay white and red, with a galaxy of white stars in a blue union, on the lee side of the spanker; while at the same instant a long, thin, coach-whip of a pennant unspun itself from the main truck, and hung motionless in the calm down the mast. Her decks were full of men, standing in groups under the shade of the sails to leeward; and on the poop were three or four officers ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise

... the spanker is set, was also got up by means of the same tackle; and, what with hoisting in some of the main deck guns and sails and other gear, ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson

... rigging masts and yards. Their dreams are of cringles and reef-tackles, of knots, splices, grummets, and dead-eyes. They can tell the length, to a fathom, of every rope in the boatswain's warrant, from the flying jib down-haul to the spanker-sheet; and the height of every spar, from the main-top-gallant truck to the heel of the lower mast. Their delight is in stowing the hold; dragging about kentlage is their joy; they are the very souls of the ship's company. In harbour they are eternally paddling in the ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall

... the rate of about two knots, under close-reefed topsails, storm trysails, and spanker. We could hear Captain Gordon's voice directing the working of the ship, and once I saw him on the quarterdeck, leaning over the rail to watch us. His head was bandaged as if from some accident. On the forecastle deck the mate and some men stood watching our approach, with ropes ready to throw out ...
— The Pilots of Pomona • Robert Leighton

... Unfortunately, both the cutter and the barge, in hoisting out, were stove, and immediately swamped, no less than thirty men perishing with them. Several of the crew had been killed by the falling of the masts, and others were severely injured. Two midshipmen were crushed to death between the spanker boom and ...
— Narratives of Shipwrecks of the Royal Navy; between 1793 and 1849 • William O. S. Gilly

... from such a handful, some of my more resolute fellows, thirteen in number, faced about, and very deliberately taking their aim at the enemy as they came up, gave them a 'spanker', which killed upwards of half their number. The rest took to flight, leaving their colonel, whose horse was slain, to shift for himself, which he quickly did by running ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems

... Hotel where Augustus lived. Her husband's name, curiously enough, was Harris, and wags referred to him as the Mr. Harris, because he had never been seen—and like Betsey Prig, they "didn't believe there was no sich person". And beyond doubt she was a spanker. ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren

... there was an entertainment announced at the 'Rooms,' and to pass away the time I looked in. It was an elocutionist one, entitled 'Merry-Making Moments, or, Spanker's Wallet of Varieties,' with a portrait of Spanker on the bills opening the wallet with an expression of delight or surprise. This was his 'Grand Competition Night,' when a 'magnificent goblet' was competed for by all comers, ...
— A Day's Tour • Percy Fitzgerald

... weather braces! Up with the helm! Bear a hand now, my hearties! Now, then, all together! Brace in!" He himself set a good example to the short crew, who hastened to obey his rapid commands, by assisting the two seamen stationed aft to brail in the spanker, in which labor he was speedily joined by Talbot, who had come on deck. Young Wilton and Bentley lent the same assistance forward, and in an astonishingly brief time, considering her small crew, ...
— For Love of Country - A Story of Land and Sea in the Days of the Revolution • Cyrus Townsend Brady

... real handsum now; that 'ere horse goes etarnal fast, he near about set my axle on fire twice. He's a spanker you may depend. I had him when he was a two-year-old, all legs and tail, like a devil's darnin' needle, and had him broke on purpose by father's old nigger, January Snow. He knows English real well, and can do near about anything but speak it. He helped ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton

... was now fairly commenced. One of the shot of the first broadsides of the Kearsarge carried away the spanker-gaff of the enemy, and caused his ensign to come down by the run. This incident was received as a favorable omen by the fortunate crew, who cheered vociferously and went with increased confidence to their work. Wild and ...
— The Story of the Kearsarge and Alabama • A. K. Browne



Words linked to "Spanker" :   spank, slapper, fore-and-aft sail, hitter



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