beak-head
(ˈbiːkhɛd)
[f. beak n.1 + head.]
1. Naval Arch. a. The beak or prow of an ancient war-galley. b. A small platform at the fore part of the upper deck. c. The part of a ship in front of the forecastle, fastened to the stem, and supported by the main knee.
| 1580 North Plutarch (1676) 423 Commanding his Master to turn the beak-head of his galley forward. 1614 Raleigh Hist. World viii, Each of them hung out a burning Cresset vpon two poles, at the Beake-head. 1627 Capt. Smith Seaman's Gram. ii. 10 The Beak-head is without the ship before the fore-Castle..and of great vse, as well for the grace and countenance of the ship, as a place for men to ease themselues in. c 1850 Rudim. Nav. (Weale) 95 Beak head, the short platform at the fore-part of the upper deck..placed at the height of the ports from the deck, for the convenience of the chase-guns. 1855 Kingsley Heroes iii. (1868) 105 They..nailed it [the bough] to the beak-head of the ship. |
2. Arch. An ornament shaped like a bird's beak used in Norman mouldings.
| 1849 Freeman Archit. 248 The beak-head is commonly employed to grasp, as it were, one of the heavy roll-mouldings of the style. |
3. attrib. beak-head-beam, -bulkhead (see quot.); beak-head ornament, beak-head moulding (cf. sense 2).
| 1848 Rickman Archit. Introd. 17 Ornamented with a succession of zigzags and beak-head ornaments. c 1850 Rudim. Nav. (Weale) 95 Cat-Beam, or Beak-Head Beam..is the broadest beam in a ship, generally made in two breadths, tabled and bolted together. The foreside is placed far enough forward to receive the heads of the stanchions of the beak-head bulk-head. 1867 Smyth Sailor's Word-bk., Beak-head bulkhead, the old termination aft of the space called beak-head, which inclosed the fore part of the ship. |