If you’ve been reading the Patrick O’Brian Aubrey-Maturin novels, as I have (but not recently), then you’ve come across a full-on litany of sailing terms that make more or less sense depending on your literary experience and the context. Should you feel the need to actually understand each piece of early 19th century jargon, read away. Or, better yet, bowse away.
This is just one of the nautical dictionaries provided by a Harvard teaching fellow, Christopher Morrison. Better he than I in transcribing and copying!