asterite

[ASTROITE.] a-stern', adv. [Eng. a, and stern.] I. In a ship, near the stern. 1. In the hinder part of a ship. (Used of any person or thing at rest there.) "The galley gives her side and turns her prow, While those astern , descending down the steep, Thro' gaping waves behold the boiling deep. Dryden. 2. Towards the hinder part of a ship. (Used of a person on board moving, or a thing being moved, from the bow towards the stern; or of the ship itself going sternwards.) II. In or into the water or elsewhere a greater or le distance behind a ship. "Between latitudes 56° and 57° south of Cape Horn, the net was put astern several times..."- Darwin : Voyage round the World , ch. viii. Astern is opposed to ahead .