English

Alternative forms

• fo’c’sle

Noun

fo'c's'le

1. (informal, nautical) Forecastle.
   • 1873, Thomas Edward Brown, Betsy Lee, a fo’c’s’le yarn, main title
   • 1881, Thomas Edward Brown, Fo’c’s’le yarns: including Betsy Lee, and other poems (Macmillan, reprint of 1873 publication quoted above), main title
   • 1900, Frank Thomas Bullen, With Christ at Sea: A Personal Record of Religious Experiences on Board Ship for Fifteen Years […] (Stokes), pages 20^{1}, 21^{2}, and 22^{3}:

     ^{1} Now I had been expressly forbidden to go into the men’s quarters, the fo’c’s’le. It was so bad a place to be in — leaky, dark, and mephitic — that one would hardly have thought any prohibition necessary, but there was cheerfulness and animated conversation there.

     ^{2} Thus I became a fo’c’s’le hand, and never but once — and that only for a short passage — have I filled a steward’s place since.

     ^{3}In becoming a denizen of the fo’c’s’le I entered unconsciously upon the fourth great change in my life.

   • 1997, David Kasanof and Matthew P. Murphy, From the Fo’c’s’le, main title (Sheridan House, Inc.; ISBN 1‒57409‒034‒8)