Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun In upholstery, the gathering up of the material of a curtain, valance, or the like, as in short festoons.
- noun In mining, the process of taking out ore-rock.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Naut.) The process of taking in a reef.
- noun a bowsprit so rigged that it can easily be run in or shortened by sliding inboard, as in cutters.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun The process of
reefing (taking in a sail); an act of reefing; also used of clothing. - noun Australia A
reef (seam of quartz). - verb Present participle of
reef .
Etymologies
Sorry, no etymologies found.
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Examples
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What we call the reefing clew is an eye, called a reefing grommet, set into the leech of the sail.
Sailing Fundamentals Gary Jobson 1998
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What we call the reefing clew is an eye, called a reefing grommet, set into the leech of the sail.
Sailing Fundamentals Gary Jobson 1998
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A line called the reefing line is led through the grommet, down to the boom, and forward to a cleat on larger boats, there’s a winch to help tighten the line.
Sailing Fundamentals Gary Jobson 1998
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A line called the reefing line is led through the grommet, down to the boom, and forward to a cleat on larger boats, there’s a winch to help tighten the line.
Sailing Fundamentals Gary Jobson 1998
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"But the Navy has told us that 'reefing' is better because it would allow divers to go down on it and would preserve
Civil War Bookshelf 2010
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Two hours afterward, on San Pablo Bay, the wind was piping up and we were reefing down.
SMALL-BOAT SAILING 2010
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I have toiled all night, both watches on deck, in a typhoon off the coast of Japan, and been less exhausted than by two hours 'work at reefing down a thirty-foot sloop and heaving up two anchors on a lee shore in a screaming south-easter.
SMALL-BOAT SAILING 2010
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But I had not reckoned upon the colossal task the reefing of three sails meant for one man.
Chapter 39 2010
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"That reefing device is a winner!" young Winn cried, as he climbed out.
Winged Blackmail 2010
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Number Eight is ready, and I know I've at last got that reefing down fine.
Winged Blackmail 2010
chained_bear commented on the word reefing
"A staff writer at the Review, after seeing him more than once drive the trotter Phoebe Wilkes to 'unlikely victories,' was moved to pen this paean to McHenry's habit of 'reefing' (archaic slang meaning 'to hit with excessive force') the less-than-eager mare: here the abysmal poem is reprinted... I pause now to let the reader dry his eye."
—Charles Leerhsen, Crazy Good: The True Story of Dan Patch (New York and London: Simon & Schuster, 2008), 111–112
October 23, 2008