Wear, to

(1) To turn a sailing craft from one tack to the other by turning downwind – or to Gybe if the craft is rigged fore and aft. Pronounced ‘ware’, so that you may say, ‘ware heads, I’m going to wear ship’, instead of the shorter ‘gybe-oh!’. (2) Craft wear their flags and burgees. People, on the other hand, ‘fly’ their club burgees and house flags. In other words, when you are flying your burgee your ship is wearing it.