(from rib and bend), in naval architecture, long narrow flexible pieces of timber, nailed upon the outside of the ribs, from the stem to the stern-post, so as to envelope the ship lengthwise, and appear on her side and bottom like the meridians on the surface of the globe. The ribands being judiciously arranged with regard to their height and distance from each other, and forming regular sweeps about the ship's body, will compose a kind of frame, whose interior surface will determine the curve of all the intermediate or filling-timbers which are stationed between the principal ones. As the figure of the ship's bottom approaches to that of a conoid, and the ribands have a limited breadth, it is apparent that they cannot be applied to this convex surface without forming a double curve, which will be partly vertical and partly horizontal; so that the vertical curve will increase by approaching the stem, and still more by drawing near the stern-post. It is also evident, that by deviating from the middle line of the ship's length, as they approach the extreme breadth at the midship-frame, the ribands will also form an horizontal curve. The lowest of these, which is termed upon the stem and stern-post, at the height of the rising line of the floor, and answers to the upper part of the floor-timber upon the midship-frame, is called the floor-riband. That which coincides with the wing-tran-tom, at the height of the lower deck upon the midship-frame, is termed the breadth-riband; all the rest, which are placed between these two, are called intermediate-ribands. See *Ship-Building*.