sea legs

• sealegs, sea-legs

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sea legs pl (plural only)

1. (idiomatic, nautical) The ability, when walking aboard a ship, to anticipate the motion of the deck so as to walk steadily without losing balance.

   to get/find one's sea legs

   • 1840, [James Fenimore Cooper], chapter XII, in The Pathfinder: Or, The Inland Sea. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), Philadelphia, Pa.: Lea and Blanchard, →OCLC:

     Jasper would find his sea-legs in a fortnight, and a twelvemonth's v'y'ge would make him a man.

   • 1842 December – 1844 July, Charles Dickens, chapter 33, in The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published 1844, →OCLC:

     […] and hear poor Mr Tapley, in his wandering fancy, playing at skittles in the Dragon, making love-remonstrances to Mrs Lupin, getting his sea-legs on board the Screw, travelling with old Tom Pinch on English roads, and burning stumps of trees in Eden, all at once.

   • 1869, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], chapter II, in The Innocents Abroad, or The New Pilgrims’ Progress; […], Hartford, Conn.: American Publishing Company. […], →OCLC:

     Our passengers hailed from fifteen states; only a few of them had ever been to sea before; manifestly it would not do to pit them against a full-blown tempest until they had got their sea-legs on.

   • 1884, Arthur Conan Doyle, J. Habakuk Jephson's Statement‎^[1]:

     Had a refreshing walk up and down the quarter-deck, though I have hardly found my sea-legs yet.

   • 1905, Bram Stoker, The Man‎^[2]:

     It was fortunate for the passengers that most of them had at this period of the voyage got their sea legs; otherwise walking on the slippery deck, that seemed to heave as the rolling of the vessel threw its slopes up or down, would have been impossible.

2. (idiomatic) The ability to travel by ship without becoming seasick.
   • 1890, William Booth, In Darkest England and the Way Out‎^[3]:

     When the ship was pitching or rolling, work would be difficult; but even then, when the Colonists get their sea-legs, and are free from the qualmishness which overtakes landsmen when first getting afloat, I cannot see why they should not engage in some form of industrial work far more profitable than yawning and lounging about the deck, to say nothing of the fact that by so doing they would lighten the expense of their transit.

3. (chiefly US, rare) Synonym of crabsticks.
4. (idiomatic) The ability to partially or fully inhabit a marine environment.
   • 2021, PBS Eons: When Crocs Thrived in the Seas‎^[4]:

     So, from the Jurassic Period to today, the problems that come with being secondarily aquatic seem to have had the same kinds of solutions. And what we've learned is that it's no easy task to get your sea legs. But once you do, it's smooth sailing.

• land legs

• Lesages, Seagles, ageless, eagless