Definition of "astern" []

• Behind a vessel. (adverb)
• At or to the stern of a vessel. (adverb)
• With or having the stern foremost; backward. (adverb)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• ""Glad to hear it," returned the other, who could read our name astern as she lay athwart us."
• "I demanded: but the next moment I heard his call astern and knew that, monkey-like, he had got her over and was aboard her somehow."
• "'midship-house, and Charles Davis lies about him nursing a marlin-spike, and Christian Jespersen, miles astern, is deep sunk in the sea with a sack of coal at his feet."