half deck

American  

noun

1. (in a sailing ship) the portion of the deck below the upper or spar deck and aft of the mainmast.

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Other Word Forms

• half-decker
  noun

Etymology

Origin of half deck

First recorded in 1620–30

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

half deck

It's a sight out of a Twain lover's imagined memory: a tiny, homemade Mississippi River raft, buoyant on blue oil-drums, flapping blue canvas greetings from its scanty half deck.

From Time Magazine Archive

It had been an old ship’s jolly-boat, and had a roughly-built half deck cabin about the size of a four-wheeled cab. 

From Rambling Recollections of Chelsea by an old inhabitant by J. B. Ellenor

Sometimes it is placed between two of the guns, under the half deck; bat generally, I think, he is laid where I have mentioned, just abaft the mainmast.

From The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction Volume 17, No. 488, May 7, 1831 by Various

Now aft, near the tiller, a small boat was bound on the half deck of the Raven.

From Eric Brighteyes by Henry Rider Haggard

The bark had a half deck extending to the main-mast.

From The Story of a Strange Career Being the Autobiography of a Convict; an Authentic Document by Anonymous