Also 8 brigg. [Abbreviation of BRIGANTINE. Cf. cab, mob, zoo., etc.] A vessel (a.) originally identical with the brigantine (of which word brig was a colloquial abbreviation); but, while the full name has remained with the unchanged brigantine, the shortened name has accompanied the modifications which have subsequently been made in rig, so that a brig is now
(b.) A vessel with two masts square-rigged like a ship’s fore- and main-masts, but carrying also on her main-mast a lower fore-and-aft sail with a gaff and boom.
A brig differs from a snow in having no try-sail mast, and in lowering her gaff to furl the sail. Merchant snows are often called ‘brigs.’ This vessel was probably developed from the brigantine by the men-of-war brigs, so as to obtain greater sail-power.
1720. Lond. Gaz., No. 5848/4. The Ship Blessing, 50 Tuns Burthen, a Brigg … belonging to St. Ives in Cornwall.
1753. Scots Mag., April, 195/2. Two guarda costa brigs and a sloop of war.
1769. Falconer, Dict. Marine (1789), Brig, or Brigantine, a merchant ship with two masts…. It is variously applied, by the mariners of different European nations, to a peculiar sort of vessel of their own marine.
1800. Nelson, Lett., 18 Feb., in Duncan, Life (1806), 121. The El Corso brig.
1845. Darwin, Voy. Nat., i. 1. Her Majesty’s ship Beagle, a ten-gun brig … Sailed from Devonport.
1854. J. Stephens, Centr. Amer., 2. Four ships, three brigs, sundry schooners.
(c.) ‘A hermaphrodite brig has a brig’s foremast and a schooner’s mainmast’ (Dana, Bef. the Mast, 1840, Gloss.); = BRIGANTINE 3.
2. Comb. brig-rigged a., rigged as a brig; brig-schooner, a hermaphrodite brig, or brigantine (Smyth, Sailor’s Word-bk.).
1796. Nelson, in Nicolas, Disp., II. 177. Transports—La bonne Mère, two hundred and fifty tons, Brig-rigged.
