Definition of "abaft"
abaft
preposition
(nautical) Behind; toward the stern relative to some other object or position; aft of.
Quotations
[…] two drunken Turkes, that were in the Frigot with twelue others, discharged two Calieuers, with which they killed two Souldiours, that stood abaft our Gally.
1620, Miguel de Cervantes, chapter 63, in Thomas Shelton, transl., The Second Part of the History of the Valorous and Witty Knight-Errant, Don Quixote of the Mancha, London: Edward Blount, page 432
[…] we could hear the water rush in a little abaft the foremast, about three feet from the keel: this determined me to clear the hold intirely.
1773, James Cook, An Account of a Voyage Around the World, Book 3, Chapter 5, in John Hawkesworth (ed.), An Account of the Voyages Undertaken by the Order of His Present Majesty: for Making Discoveries in the Southern Hemisphere, London: W. Strahan and T. Cadell, Volume 3, p. 558
The bulkhead that separates ladies’ country from the rough characters who shave is not necessarily No. 30 but, by tradition, it is called “bulkhead thirty” in any mixed ship. […] Male officers had a lounge called the cardroom just abaft thirty.
1959, Robert A. Heinlein, chapter 13, in Starship Troopers, New York: Ace, published 2010, page 260
adverb
comparative more abaft, superlative most abaft
(nautical) On the aft side; in the stern.
Quotations
The Exchange also being farther from the fire, afterward was more easily cleared, and fell off from abaft.
1599, Nicholas Downton, “The firing and sinking of the stout and warrelike Carack called Las Cinque Llaguas”, in Richard Hakluyt, editor, The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation, London, Volume 2, Part 2, p. 200
(nautical, obsolete) Backwards.