GALLEY • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Galley

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/gˈæli/ Listen

noun

Galley n. (pl. galleys)

(Naut.) A vessel propelled by oars, whether having masts and sails or not; as:

(a)

A large vessel for war and national purposes; common in the Middle Ages, and down to the 17th century.

(b)

A name given by analogy to the Greek, Roman, and other ancient vessels propelled by oars.

(c)

A light, open boat used on the Thames by customhouse officers, press gangs, and also for pleasure.

(d)

One of the small boats carried by a man-of-war. Note: The typical galley of the Mediterranean was from one hundred to two hundred feet long, often having twenty oars on each side. It had two or three masts rigged with lateen sails, carried guns at prow and stern, and a complement of one thousand to twelve hundred men, and was very efficient in mediaeval warfare. Galleons, galliots, galleasses, half galleys, and quarter galleys were all modifications of this type.

The cookroom or kitchen and cooking apparatus of a vessel; sometimes on merchant vessels called the caboose.

(Chem.) An oblong oven or muffle with a battery of retorts; a gallery furnace.

(Print.)

(a)

An oblong tray of wood or brass, with upright sides, for holding type which has been set, or is to be made up, etc.

(b)

A proof sheet taken from type while on a galley; a galley proof.

Galley slave, a person condemned, often as a punishment for crime, to work at the oar on board a galley. "To toil like a galley slave."

Galley slice (Print.), a sliding false bottom to a large galley.

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Etymology of 'Galley'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Galley" Quotes from Famous Books

... husband and her children, Flora exacted service that would have chafed a galley slave into rebellion. She loved to lie in bed, in an orchid bed jacket with ribbons, and be read to by Adele, or Eugene, or her husband. They ...

— One Basket • Edna Ferber

... Divested of that purple of the soul, That potency, that palm of wise ambition, Cast headlong by thy madness from that height, That only eminence 'twixt earth and heaven, Virtue, which some desert, but none despise, Whether thou art beheld again on earth, Whether a captive or a fugitive, Miner or galley-slave, depends on me: But he alone who made me what I am Can make me greater, or ...

— Count Julian • Walter Savage Landor

... lurk about In dismal suburbs and unwholesome lanes I, who am housed worse than the galley slave; I, who am fed worse than the kennelled hound; I, who am clothed in rags,—Beltran ...

— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... make galley-slaves of ourselves on the off-chance of selling. Rainey says that wood camps have sprung up like mushrooms all along the river. The price of wood ...

— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)

... board and found 'im there with Mrs. Plimmer. However, when we got there I persuaded 'er to go into the office while I went aboard to see if I could find out where he was, and three minutes arterwards he was standing with me behind the galley, trembling all over and ...

— Ship's Company, The Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs

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