n. A midway point between a ship's centre of buoyancy when upright and its centre of buoyancy when tilted; it must be above the centre of gravity to enable a tilting ship to return to an upright position.
WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
n. (shipbuilding) the point of intersection between two vertical lines, one line through the center of buoyancy of the hull of a ship in equilibrium and the other line through the center of buoyancy of the hull when the ship is inclined to one side; the distance of this intersection above the center of gravity is an indication of the stability of the ship
Word Usage
"To compute exactly the extent to which these evils have been developed he has devised a syncretic abacus, in which, on the principle of the spectroscope, the aplanatic foci are arranged in fluorescent nodules each equidistant from the metacentre."