Astern

adv. (prep.), orig. phr., Naut. [f. A prep.¹ + STERN, the hinder part of a ship.]

  1.  Of position: In or at the stern.

1675.  Hobbes, Odyss., 61. Then he astern sate down and governed.

a. 1826.  Hood, Wee Man, x. Good sir, you must not sit a-stern, The wave will else come in.

  2.  Hence, in the rear, behind (at any distance).

1627.  Capt. Smith, Seaman’s Gram., ix. 45. To lay an anchor … ahead, and another asterne.

1692.  Lond. Gaz., No. 2811/3. The Rupert being about a mile a-stern.

1725.  De Foe, Voy. round World (1840), 350. A gale of wind right astern.

1845.  Darwin, Voy. Nat., iii. (1879), 43. They made all sail … and soon left the horse astern.

  b.  Astern of: in the rear of (a ship).

1634.  Sir T. Herbert, Trav., 3. A Barbarian man of warre … came asterne of us.

1707.  Luttrell, Brief Rel., VI. 168. One of the biggest … men of war … sunk down a stern of him.

1865.  Dickens, Mut. Fr., i. 3. Keeping half his boat’s length astern of the other boat.

  3.  Of motion: To the rear, backward; stern foremost. Said of a ship or boat.

1681.  Lond. Gaz., 1628/1. Soon after the Algerine fell a stern.

1857.  Emerson, Poems, 29. I, Alphonso, live and learn, Seeing Nature go astern.

1858.  J. Mansfield, in Merc. Mar. Mag., V. 19. She came round with head to wind, when she backed astern.

  B.  prep. At the stern or rear of (a ship).

1675.  Hobbes, Odyss., 150. Dolon’s spoils astern his ship he plac’d.