E. The second class of rating on Lloyd's books for the comparative excellence of merchant ships. (_See_ A.) EAGER. _See_ EAGRE. EAGLE. The insignia of the Romans, borrowed also by moderns, as Frederic of Prussia and Napoleon. Also, a gold coin of the United States, of the value of five dollars, or £1, 0_s._ 10_d._ sterling, at the average rate of exchange. EAGLE, OR SPREAD-EAGLE. A punishment inflicted by _seizing_ the offender by his arms and legs to the shrouds, and there leaving him for a specified time. EAGRE, OR HYGRE. The reciprocation of the freshes of various rivers, as for instance the Severn, with the flowing tide, sometimes presenting a formidable surge. The name seems to be from the Anglo-Saxon _eágor_, water, or _Ægir_, the Scandinavian god of the sea. (_See_ BORE and HYGRE.) EAR. A west-country term for a place where hatches prevent the influx of the tide. EAR-SHOT. The distance or range of hearing. EAR-WIGGING. Feeding an officer's ear with scandal against an absent individual. EARING-CRINGLE, AT THE HEAD OF A SAIL. In sail-making it is an eye spliced in the bolt-rope, to which the much smaller head-rope is attached. The earings are hauled out, or lashed to cleats on the yards passing through the head corners or cringles of the sails. EARINGS. Certain small ropes employed to fasten the upper corners of a sail to its yard, for which purpose one end of the earing is passed through itself; and the other end is passed five or six times round the yard-arm, and through the cringle; the two first turns, which are intended to stretch the head of the sail tight along the yard, are passed beyond the lift and rigging on the yard-arm, and are called outer turns, while the rest, which draw it close up to the yard, and are passed within the lift, &c., are called inner turns. Below the above are the _reef-earings_, which are used to reef the sail when the reef-tackles have stretched it to take off the strain.
The Sailor's Word Book by William Henry Smyth edited by Edward Belcher, published originally in 1867 by Blackie & Son
