In this study, maritime terms used in Ottoman poetry were scanned and an attempt was made to identify them to a large extent. At first glance, it may not seem plausible that maritime terms, which might be perceived as coarse and vulgar expressions stemming perhaps from the harsh and challenging conditions of life at sea, would be used in such a refined and delicate branch of literature as poetry. However, when considering the great successes achieved by the Ottoman navy and even Turkish sea pirates during that period, the use of maritime terms in our poetry—which are mostly composed of words of Latin and Greek origin and could be considered difficult for non-sailors to understand—and their becoming almost fashionable for a time, is not such an incomprehensible situation.