nauticalness

plural nauticalnesses

1. rareuncountableusuallyThe quality of being nautical.

   A gold tie clip was made in the shape of a sailboat. The object was a jaunty nauticalness, I guess, but it made me seasick.

   1993 August, Paul Kemprecos, chapter 11, in Feeding Frenzy (An Aristotle ‘Soc’ Socarides Mystery; 4), New York, N.Y.: A Perfect Crime Book, Doubleday, →ISBN, page 118

   5 more examples

   However, Dinky did beautifully while I was being demonstrated to, and when he had made a skillful landing and getaway I turned her prow (that sounds much more nautical than bow, and much bigger, too, don’t you think?) towards the upper reaches (more nauticalness, d’y see?) of the river and chugged grandly away from that landing.

   1920 August, C[arl] H[arry] Claudy, “Dinky—A Prose Poem”, in J. Harry Lewis, editor, The Crescent, volume 11, number 6, Saint Paul, Minn.: Crescent Publishing Company, →OCLC, page 152

   THE sailors’ inn of popular fancy is—as fanciful things have, fortunately perhaps, so often a way of being—very far removed from the sailors’ inn of sober actuality. It is, to begin with, of an incredible, nay, an impossible, nauticalness; so that, should a landsman venture his nose within it, he might almost be excused for feeling a little seasick.

   1925, C[icely] Fox Smith, “Sailos’ Inns”, in Ship Alley: More Sailor Town Days, Boston, Mass.; New York, N.Y.: Houghton Mifflin Company, →OCLC, page 6

   Little coats that carry a suggestion of nauticalness in their trimmings. Of fine cheviot serge in blue, trimmed with brass button and emblems in embroidery work on the sleeve.

   1931 April 1, Canadian Department Stores, “Cheviot Serge Coats”, in The Ontario Intelligencer, Belleville, Ont.: W[illiam] H[erbert] Morton, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 11, column 5

   Nauticalness virtually overflows from this coffee shop–styled seafood house, from its steamy interior to its patio, where the smell of the salt air goes perfectly with the fresh seafood chowder.

   1992, “Redwood Empire”, in Laura Hagar, Stephanie Irving, editors, Northern California Best Places: Restaurants, Lodgings, and Touring, Seattle, Wash.: Sasquatch Books, →ISBN, pages 268–269

   And somewhere, somewhere in all this nauticalness and officialese and professionalismo there reposed, Hradec was almost sure, the walkie-talkie.

   1993 April, Donald E[diwn] Westlake, chapter 8, in Don’t Ask (Dortmunder; 8), New York, N.Y.: Mysterious Press, →ISBN, page 56

   Synonyms: nauticality