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Originally Posted by Laurence Finston
It's certainly "side" since "port side" and "starboard side" are the normal terms for the sides of a boat or ship. And "fore" and "aft" for the front and back, as you probably know, and "aloft" and "below" for up in the rigging and below deck, respectively. Don't know how a normal word like "below" snuck in there.
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I have actually heard the term "alow" (meaning on or below deck) in nautical use: "I can't find my marlinspike -- I've searched for it alow and aloft." The general convention seems to be that the prefix "a" denotes a direction relative to the ship: ahead, astern, alee, aweather, abeam, etc. There also seem to be some finer distinctions: "aft" means toward the stern, "abaft" means toward the stern in relation to something else (the mizzen mast is abaft the main mast), and "astern" means behind the stern outside of the ship.