apeak

American  

[uh-peek] / əˈpik /

Or apeek

adjective

1. more or less vertical.

2. (of a dropped anchor) as nearly vertical as possible without being free of the bottom.

3. (of an anchored vessel) having the anchor cable as nearly vertical as possible without freeing the anchor.

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adverb

1. vertically.

apeak British  

/ əˈpiːk /

adverb

1. nautical in a vertical or almost vertical position

   with the oars apeak

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Etymology

Origin of apeak

First recorded in 1590–1600; a- ¹ + peak ¹

Example Sentences

Where Cabots speak only to Lowells, And the Lowells apeak only to God.

From Time Magazine Archive

A vessel rides easily, apeak, athwart, head to wind, out a gale, open hawse, to the tide, to the wind, &c.

From The Sailor's Word-Book An Alphabetical Digest of Nautical Terms, including Some More Especially Military and Scientific, but Useful to Seamen; as well as Archaisms of Early Voyagers, etc. by Belcher, Edward, Sir

The Dutch, without any faint-heartedness, raised one anchor, and placed the other apeak, in order to go to meet our fleet.

From The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 — Volume 17 of 55 1609-1616 Explorations by Early Navigators, Descriptions of the Islands and Their Peoples, Their History and Records of the Catholic Missions, as Related in Contemporaneous Books and Manuscripts, Showing the Political, Economic, Commercial and Religious Conditions of Those Islands from Their Earliest Relations with European Nations to the Close of the Nineteenth Century by Robertson, James Alexander

Here Forester ordered the oars apeak, and the crew at ease.

From Marco Paul's Voyages and Travels; Vermont by Abbott, Jacob

Marco wished to have Forester teach the boys how to back water, and to trail oars, and to put the oars apeak, and to perform various other evolutions.

From Marco Paul's Voyages and Travels; Vermont by Abbott, Jacob