abeam

[uh-beem]

adverb

1. Nautical, Aeronautics.,  at right angles to the fore-and-aft line.

   The vessel was sailing with the wind directly abeam.

2. directly abreast the middle of a ship's side.

abeam

/ əˈbiːm /

adverb

1. (postpositive) at right angles to the length and directly opposite the centre of a vessel or aircraft

Word History and Origins

Origin of abeam¹

First recorded in 1830–40; a- ¹ + beam

Word History and Origins

Origin of abeam¹

C19: _a- ² + _beam

Example Sentences

England and the Kingdom, Britain and the Empire, the old prides and the old devotions, glide abeam, astern, sink down upon the horizon, pass - pass.

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Nothing came back at us from the island, but our ship’s gunners still sprayed it with bursts of twenty-millimeter fire as we passed abeam.

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But when, last Sunday, the rain came, and a vessel carrying the London Philharmonic Orchestra with a drenched choir perched on top came abeam the queen’s moored royal barge near Tower Bridge, that changed.

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With the wind abeam on the port side the "Golden Hind" opened out to one hundred and forty miles an hour.

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Caught in the blinding glare, her crew could be seen hard at work endeavouring to turn a pair of torpedo-tubes abeam--a task of considerable difficulty owing to the "racer" being damaged.

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