SHROVE-TUESDAY, is the Tuesday after Quinquagesima Sunday, or the day immediately preceding the first of Lent; being so called from the Saxon word shrive, which signifies to confess, as having been employed by the people in time of popery, in confessing their sins, in order to receive the sacrament, and thereby qualify themselves for a more religious observation of Lent. SHROWDS, in a ship, are the great ropes which come down both sides of the masts, and are fastened below to the chains on the ship's side, and aloft to the top of the mast; being parcelled and served in order to prevent the mast's galling them. The top-mast shrowds are fastened to the puttock-plates, by dead eyes and laniards, as the others are.