Definitions
Wiktionary
- adj. literally Having living quarters in the forecastle
- adj. Describing seamen rather than officers
GNU Webster's 1913
- prep. (Naut.) as a common sailor, -- because the sailors live in the forecastle, forward of the foremast.
Examples
“The month in which my seventeenth birthday arrived I signed on before the mast on the Sophie Sutherland, a three-topmast schooner bound on a seven-months 'seal-hunting cruise to the coast of”
“Subsequently I shipped before the mast and sailed for the Japanese coast on a seal-hunting expedition, later going to Behring Sea.”
“To be hounded before the mast by scum who wouldn't have pulley-haulied on my ship, herded with filthy packet rats, fed on slop and glad to get ii, threatened with the cat, by Jesus - aye, stare, rot you!”
Flashman and the angel of the lord
“Richard H. Dana served two years before the mast, and had every experience that falls to the lot of the sailor before the mast of our day.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘before the mast’.
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Three Sheets to the Wind
Common words or phrases of nautical origin that have taken on different or metaphorical meanings. Chained_bear and I tossed a coin over who would make the list. I won (or lost, depending on how you...
scuttlebutt, taken aback, brass monkey, boot camp, clean bill of health, three sheets to t..., the devil to pay, between the devil..., by and large, the whole nine yards, mind your ps and qs, slush fund and 116 more...
Tweets
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reesetee Literally, the area of a ship before the foremast (the fo'c'sle). It was most often used to describe men whose living quarters were located here (officers were housed behind, or abaft, the mast; enlisted men were housed in front of, or before, the mast). The midships area where officers berthed is more stable and closer to the center of gravity--therefore more comfortable and less subject to the up and down movement from the ship's pitching. It eventually came to describe seamen vs. officers: to describe someone as "sailing before the mast" is to say that they do not hold a high position.
Dec 2, 2007