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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.
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