windlass
Americannoun
verb (used with object)
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windlasses,
present (3rd person singular)
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windlassed,
past participle, past
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windlassing
present participle
noun
verb
Other Word Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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windlasssimple
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windlassessimple
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have windlassedperfect
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has windlassedperfect
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am windlassingprogressive
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are windlassingprogressive
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is windlassingprogressive
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have been windlassingperfect progressive
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has been windlassingperfect progressive
Past
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windlassedsimple
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had windlassedperfect
-
was windlassingprogressive
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were windlassingprogressive
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had been windlassingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of windlass
1350–1400; Middle English wind ( e ) las < Old Norse vindāss, equivalent to vinda to wind 2 + āss beam
Vocabulary lists containing windlass
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
The front section, which was more intact, had an anchor, a windlass and a stairwell feature consistent with the liner.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 30, 2026
As he cranked the windlass, Neal asked, “How do we know when to stop?”
From The New Yorker ● Apr. 1, 2019
Up here on that bow, this is the anchor windlass.
From Slate ● Jun. 16, 2017
In one case, a broken gear on its anchor windlass was so old that a new part had to be custom built, causing a six-week delay.
From Reuters ● Oct. 8, 2012
Americans drove the trucks and used a windlass and a kind of davit to pull the filled barrels aboard.
From "Travels with Charley in Search of America" by John Steinbeck
Horizontal windlasses have their motors above the deck; vertical windlasses have them below the deck in the anchor locker.
From Time Magazine Archive
Our 18th century heroes had hundreds of crew and aft windlasses to do the job.
From Time Magazine Archive
But his childhood farm--his grounding in the earth--has never left Heaney or his poems: "As a child, they could not keep me from wells/ And old pumps with buckets and windlasses."
From Time Magazine Archive
The standard equipment list is extensive and of first quality, with such items as Pool anchors, Freeman hardware, Maxwell windlasses and capstans and Northern Lights generators.
From Time Magazine Archive
They were hoisted out of the boats with derricks and windlasses built by the carpenters and put into waiting carts that carried them through the town to the site.
From "Cathedral: The Story of Its Construction" by David Macaulay
Each day thousands of dollars’ worth of gold were scraped from bedrock and windlassed to the surface, and it all belonged to Pentfield and Hutchinson, who took their rank among the richest kings of Bonanza.
From The Faith of Men by Jack London
Figures of men crawled out of the holes, or disappeared into them, or, on raised platforms of hand-hewn timber, windlassed the thawed gravel to the surface, where it immediately froze.
From Burning Daylight by Jack London
The horse had lashed me into the saddle by winding the rope, and at the same time windlassed the bear in on top of us.
From Cattle Brands A Collection of Western Camp-fire Stories by Andy Adams
A benevolent person watched a workman laboriously windlassing rock from a shaft while the broiling sun was beating down on his bare head.
From Toaster's Handbook Jokes, Stories, and Quotations by C. E. (Clara Elizabeth) Fanning
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
