abaft

prep

1. Behind; toward the stern relative to some other object or position; aft of.

   “The captain stood abaft the wheelhouse.”

   “[…] two drunken Turkes, that were in the Frigot with twelue others, discharged two Calieuers, with which they killed two Souldiours, that stood abaft our Gally.”

   “1773, James Cook, An Account of a Voyage Around the World, Book 3, Chapter 5, in John Hawkesworth (ed.), An Account of the Voyages Undertaken by the Order of His Present Majesty: for Making Discoveries in the Southern Hemisphere, London: W. Strahan and T. Cadell, Volume 3, p. 558, […] we could hear the water rush in a little abaft the foremast, about three feet from the keel: this determined me to clear the hold intirely.”

   ““[…] Read the sign up there—NO SMOKING ABAFT THE WHEEL!””

   “The bulkhead that separates ladies’ country from the rough characters who shave is not necessarily No. 30 but, by tradition, it is called “bulkhead thirty” in any mixed ship. […] Male officers had a lounge called the cardroom just abaft thirty.”

adv

1. On the aft side; in the stern.

   “We drifted with the wind abaft.”

   “The mate sleeps abaft.”

   “The Exchange also being farther from the fire, afterward was more easily cleared, and fell off from abaft.”

   “By clapping the sails to the mast, and lightening the ship abaft, we swayed her off with little damage.”

   “Stubb was struck by a shower of outcries and anathemas proceeding from the Captain’s round-house abaft;”

2. (obsolete)Backwards.