Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To roll up and secure (a flag or sail, for example) to something else.
- v. To be or become rolled up.
- n. The act or an instance of rolling up.
- n. A single roll or a rolled section.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To wrap or roll, as a sail, close to the yard, stay, or mast, and fasten by a gasket or cord; draw up or draw into close compass, as a flag.
- To ruffle.
- n. A roll of what is furled.
- n. The manner of furling (a sail), or the appearance presented when furled: as, a vessel is judged by the furl of the sails.
Wiktionary
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. To draw up or gather into close compass; to wrap or roll, as a sail, close to the yard, stay, or mast, or, as a flag, close to or around its staff, securing it there by a gasket or line.
WordNet 3.0
- v. form into a cylinder by rolling
Etymologies
- Perhaps from French ferler, from Old French ferlier, to fasten : ferm, firm; see firm1 + lier, to bind (from Latin ligāre; see leig- in Indo-European roots).
Examples
“Yahoos trying it, Delicious does it the best, and there are wannabees in furl, wists, delirious, and many others.”
“And yeah, we put "furl" on the windows to keep the sunshine out too...big deal.”
“And put all the reefs into the working canvas before you furl down.”
“It also includes the line "He furls his brow"; furl is a nautical term, the correct word is furrows.”
“We'll furl, an 'let you heave to," the gangster proposed.”
“As a volunteer sailor aboard a museum-quality replica of the Endeavour, I lived and worked like an eighteenth-century seaman: sleeping in a narrow hammock in the ship's hold alongside forty others, climbing the 127-foot main mast to furl sails in rolling seas, manning the helm in a hard blow.”
“The geeky, stand-up reporter lets his brows furl together.”
“They learned how to keep their feet on rolling decks, how to climb ratlines in a gale, how to furl and unfurl sail, how to hurl grapnels and board ships and fire blunderbusses.”
“Helen Dunmore: From the furl and unfurl of a baby's hands to the dying person's plucking at the bedcovers, we discover the world with our hands.”
The Guardian: Letters: Alone in Berlin is morally compromised
“Mounted large flags preferred for transit (furl upon ANC parking).”
bilby "Johnny Bowden and I were both rowing in haste to get out where we could catch the breeze and put up the small sail which lay clumsily furled along the gunwale."
- Sarah Orne Jewett, 'Green Island'. Sep 8, 2009