squilgee

noun

1. (historical)A tool in the form of a mop or swab, or a blade with a long handle, used for cleaning and/or drying a vessel's deck; a type of squeegee.

   “After the holy-stone, comes the squill-gee; a wooden instrument like a hoe, but with a face, broad and flat, and lined with leather: the decks are partly dried with it; and the operation is completed by the swabs, articles formed by tying a number of loose yarns together, now dashed, by their handles, with violence about the deck.”

   “A whaleman's nipper is a short firm strip of tendinous stuff cut from the tapering part of Leviathan's tail: […] Edgewise moved along the oily deck, it operates like a leathern squilgee; and by nameless blandishments, as of magic, allures along with it all impurities.”

verb

1. (also, figuratively, transitive)Synonym of squeegee (“to use a (squilgee or) squeegee on (something, such as a surface)”).