Athwartship

Part of speech: adverb

Definitions

1. Lying or extending from one side to the other of a ship's beam defines a position that intersects the normal path of travel
2. Positioned extending from one side of a vessel to the other across its width
3. Placed spanning the ship laterally from one side directly to the opposite side

Etymology: Sailors reached for "athwart" long before this word existed: it meant "across" in the sense of crossing a line of travel, and the nautical use came naturally. Combine it with "ship" and you get a compound describing something laid straight across the vessel, from one side to the other, rather than along its length. The final "-s" is an adverbial ending, the same kind that turns "side" into "sideways" or "needs" into "needs-be" in older English, which is why the adverb carries a letter that the base words do not. The word is essentially a plain nautical compound, built for describing the layout of a ship's fittings and crew positions. Its meaning follows its parts directly, so there is no surprising shift to report: a beam, a bench, or a line set athwartship runs across the deck rather than fore and aft. Athwartship appears as a variant spelling of the same adverb, so both forms describe identical placement.