Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Nautical, having its iron bolts and spikes very much corroded: said of a wooden ship.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective (Naut.) Having the ironwork loose or corroded; -- said of a ship when her bolts and nails are so eaten with rust that she has become leaky.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective nautical Having the ironwork loose or corroded; said of a ship when the bolts and nails are so badly eaten with rust as to cause leaks.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

iron +‎ sick

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Examples

  • Hawke describes the _Portland_, a ship of which he was in command, as "iron-sick"; the wood was too rotten, that is, to hold the iron bolts, so that "not a man in the ship had a dry place to sleep in."

    Deeds that Won the Empire Historic Battle Scenes 1886

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