Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A wide tube or funnel of canvas serving to convey a current of fresh air into the lower parts of a ship.
  • noun One of the vanes or sails of a windmill.

Etymologies

Sorry, no etymologies found.

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word wind-sail.

Examples

  • Well, you must understand that this room was low, scarcely higher than the cabin of a fore-and-after, with no skylights to it, or wind-sail, or port-hole that would open.

    Springhaven Richard Doddridge 2004

  • His mates at the windlass went staggering back from the belch of violently discharged air: it tore the wind-sail to strips, sent stones and gravel flying, loosened planks and props.

    Australia Felix 2003

  • An awning was provided, and a wind-sail furnished to conduct fresh air between the decks during the day.

    American Prisoners of the Revolution Danske Dandridge

  • Amid this chaos, several huge black figures, stripped to the waist, and with wet cloths around their sooty faces, were flinging coal into the furnaces, or stirring the fires with long iron rakes -- now standing out gaunt and grim in the red blaze, now vanishing into the eddies of hissing steam tossed about by the stream of cold air from the funnel-like "wind-sail" serving as a ventilator.

    Harper's Young People, March 16, 1880 An Illustrated Weekly Various

  • Extending outwards at right angles on both sides of the rear portion of the balloon is a wind-sail which does the office of a kite and assists in preventing the rudder end of the balloon from being too much depressed by the weight of the car.

    The War in the Air; Vol. 1 The Part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force Walter Alexander Raleigh 1891

  • The snow pattered against the cloth stretched like a wind-sail from their flanks to the rising front of the sleigh.

    Barlasch of the Guard Henry Seton Merriman 1882

  • A strong warm gale, that compels the taking in of every awning and wind-sail.

    Two Years in the French West Indies Lafcadio Hearn 1877

  • The huge sunbonnet stiffly swung around like the wind-sail of a ship and stared at the horizon.

    From Sand Hill to Pine Bret Harte 1869

  • Well, you must understand that this room was low, scarcely higher than the cabin of a fore-and-after, with no skylights to it, or wind-sail, or port-hole that would open.

    Springhaven : a Tale of the Great War 1862

  • The Mukhbir rolled painfully off Ras Mohammed, which obliged us with its own peculiar gusts; and the 'Akabah Gulf, as usual, acted wind-sail.

    The Land of Midian — Volume 1 Richard Francis Burton 1855

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.