bilge

If you have ever sat at a restaurant, marveling at the bilge offered on the kids’ menu and wondering how on earth we got here, “Picky” has the answers.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 20, 2026

The ship is built in sections, then joined together on the slipway, supported by keel blocks, bilge blocks, wedges and "shores" - heavy lengths of timber.

From BBC ● Apr. 8, 2024

“Officers and surgeons roamed the decks, sniffing out potential culprits: foul bilge, moldy sails, rancid meat, human sweat, rotten timber, dead rats, piss and excrement, unwashed livestock, dirty breath,” Grann writes.

From Washington Post ● Apr. 18, 2023

Fadich worked the bilge pumps till he was “blue in the face” just to keep the vessel above water.

From Seattle Times ● Mar. 2, 2023

Then the squall struck whining from the west, with gale force, breaking both forestays, and the mast came toppling aft along the ship’s length, so the running rigging showered into the bilge.

From "The Odyssey" by Homer

She urged measures such as requiring fishers and riverboat operators to bleach boat hulls, bilges, and wells after passing through an affected area.

From Science Magazine ● Oct. 20, 2021

We mapped the bilges out in the fall, came back and looked at them in spring, and there was nothing there.

From Slate ● Jun. 16, 2017

But it actually is a Spanish expression, “of where the sea goes”; while the Spanish never settled this area, they would empty their bilges so the ocean would wash away their effluence.

From Washington Post ● Oct. 20, 2016

Since hitchhiking to the Great Lakes in the bilges of ocean-going ships, they have expanded virtually unchecked and are considered a major threat to waterways including Lake Erie.

From Washington Times ● Mar. 29, 2015

With each dip and plunge of the boat, Worsley swooped the pot up in the air lest their precious hoosh go slopping into the bilges.

From "Shipwreck at the Bottom of the World" by Jennifer Armstrong

Many of them bilged, or failed to graduate!

From Time Magazine Archive

Friday the 15th, the ship was bilged in the mid-ship, on a great rock; we took care to secure some powder, ball, and a little bread.

From A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 Arranged in Systematic Order: Forming a Complete History of the Origin and Progress of Navigation, Discovery, and Commerce, by Sea and Land, from the Earliest Ages to the Present Time by Robert Kerr

They had afterwards waited two days for the Sun, but she had been bilged on the rocks, as we afterwards learnt, to our great regret.

From A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels — Volume 09 Arranged in Systematic Order: Forming a Complete History of the Origin and Progress of Navigation, Discovery, and Commerce, by Sea and Land, from the Earliest Ages to the Present Time by Robert Kerr

Knees brought in from side to side over the floor ceiling and kelson, to support the bottom, if bilged or weak, for heavy cargo.

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 Sir Edward Belcher

One of the Pulo-way people being there, plainly told me that the governor only waited to have her bilged, that he might have the planks to build a praw for himself.

From A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels — Volume 08 by Robert Kerr

In another instant she would be bilging helplessly among the sands of Africa, or would be on her course free and unimpeded for the shores of America!

From Ran Away to Sea by Mayne Reid

The ship continued to beat on the rocks, and soon bilging, fell with her broadside towards the shore.

From Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy A weird series of tales of shipwreck and disaster, from the earliest part of the century to the present time, with accounts of providential escapes and heart-rending fatalities. by Anonymous

Indeed, to make her safe from bilging, Blood ordered a prompt jettisoning of the forward guns, anchors, and water-casks and whatever else was moveable.

From Captain Blood by Rafael Sabatini

"And that perhaps you've saved us from bilging?" added Midshipman Hayes.

From Dave Darrin's First Year at Annapolis by H. Irving (Harrie Irving) Hancock

The Trial sloop was a great way to leeward, having lost her mainmast in this squall, and having been obliged, for fear of bilging, to cut away the wreck.

From Anson's Voyage Round the World The Text Reduced by H. W. Household