Seafaring

Roles: vessel, crew, mast, rigging, hull, sail, anchor, cargo, port, harbor, captain, compass, lee, bow, stern, fleet

The practice of navigating and operating ships at sea, encompassing everything from the physical structure of the vessel (hull, mast, rigging, sail) to the human hierarchy (captain, crew, fleet commander) to the environmental forces that constrain action (wind, current, lee shore). Seafaring is one of the richest source domains in English, having deposited dozens of dead metaphors into everyday language during the centuries when maritime trade and naval power dominated British economic and military life. Most speakers no longer recognize the nautical origins of words like “leeway,” “flagship,” or “first-rate.”

As Source Frame (37)

• Above Board → ethics-and-morality
• At Loggerheads → argumentation
• Batten Down the Hatches → event-structure
• Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea → event-structure
• Bitter End → event-structure
• By and Large → language
• Copper-Bottomed
• Cut and Run → social-behavior
• Dead in the Water → event-structure
• Dropping the Anchor → psychotherapy
• Even Keel → mental-experience
• Fathom → intellectual-inquiry
• First-Rate
• Flagship
• Give Wide Berth → social-behavior
• Groundswell → social-behavior
• Hand Over Fist → economics
• High and Dry → social-behavior
• In the Doldrums → mental-experience
• In the Offing → event-structure
• Jury-Rigged
• Keelhauled → social-behavior
• Know the Ropes → intellectual-inquiry
• Leeway
• Loose Cannon → social-behavior
• Mainstay
• Over a Barrel → social-behavior
• Plain Sailing → event-structure
• Safe Haven → nurturing-and-creation
• Sailing Close to the Wind → ethics-and-morality
• Scuttlebutt → communication
• Shot across the Bow → communication
• Showing True Colors → social-behavior
• Take the Wind out of Someone's Sails → competition
• Taken Aback → mental-experience
• Three Sheets to the Wind → embodied-experience
• Try a Different Tack → intellectual-inquiry