Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
- n. One of several small ropes attached to the leech of a sail for drawing the sail in or up.
- n. A small net for drawing fish from a trap or a larger net into a boat.
- transitive v. To gather in (a sail) with brails.
- transitive v. To haul in (fish) with a brail.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
- n. a small rope used to truss up sails
- v. To reef, shorten or strike sail using brails.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English
- n. A thong of soft leather to bind up a hawk's wing.
- n. Ropes passing through pulleys, and used to haul in or up the leeches, bottoms, or corners of sails, preparatory to furling.
- n. A stock at each end of a seine to keep it stretched.
- transitive v. To haul up by the brails; -- used with up.
from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To fasten up (the wings of a bird).
- Nautical, to haul in by means of the brails: usually followed by up.
- n. Naut., one of certain ropes made fast to the after-leech of a fore-and-aft sail, and led through blocks on the mast or gaff down to the deck, to assist in taking in the sail; a rope made fast to the head of a jib for a similar purpose.
- n. In falconry: A piece of leather used to bind up a hawk's wing.
- n. [⟨ F. brayeul, “the parts or feathers about the Hauks fundament, called by our falconers the brayl in a shortwinged and the pannel in a long-winged hauk” (Cotgrave).] The mass of feathers about a hawk's fundament; the crissum of a falcon.
- n. A section of a log-raft, six of which make an average tow.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- v. take in a sail with a brail
- n. a small net used to draw fish into a boat
- n. a small rope (one of several) used to draw a sail in
- v. haul fish aboard with brails
Etymologies
Examples
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Elsewhere (and prevalently) confusing or misleading information is given (e.g., [at brail] "Earlier spelled brale, it came from Old French, braile, belt."): Is the inference to be that the modern English word brail was borrowed from Old French in the fifteenth century?
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Why can't kids modeling clothes in adverts have Down's syndrome, newscasters be wheelchair users, and continuity voices be reading brail?
Thank you Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, for improving the lives of disabled people
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Audio book, large print, small print, Japanese text and brail.
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I wish I had brail e-mail ... but since I dont, somebody read this to Brutha Patterson, the Clintons have LOST their MOJO ...
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I don't believe there's a brail version of the trailer.
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Caroline smiles before reaching out to touch a shapeless shadow dancing on the wall, closing her eyes as the bumps in the primer serve brail to oncoming dreams.
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For those of you unfamiliar with this "ancient" form of communication, the telex was only marginally more advanced than smoke signals, and required the typing of a brail-like tape, later fed through the contraption, words supposedly being spit out on the recipients 'machine.
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Do u tink handee-kat can obsoe reed brail wif whiskus?
blind kitteh - Lolcats 'n' Funny Pictures of Cats - I Can Has Cheezburger?
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He learned the equipment: the jesses, the hood, the brail, the leash that bound the bird to his wrist.
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That the platform of action will address issues which unite women in action and include the Beijing platform of action, social upliftment, Crime and human Trafficking, access to information through the translation of all government documents into all languages including brail and other issues as may be identified by the PWM.
frogapplause commented on the word brail
“Couple of you come aft here and brail up the spanker!”
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858
November 26, 2011