Dogwatch
on shipboard, a name given to each of two watches of two hours each instead of four, adopted for the purpose of varying the hours of watches kept by each part of the crew during the 24 hours, otherwise the same watch would invariably fall to the same men. In order to obviate this the watches are arranged thus: 8 to 12 P. M. (a); 12 to 4 A. M. (b); 4 to 8 A. M. (a); 8 to 12 A. M. (b); 12 to 4 P. M. (a) ; 4 to 6 P. M. (b), dogwatch; 6 to 8 P. M. (a), dogwatch; 8 to 12 P. M. (b) and so on.