gybe
Americanverb (used without object)
verb
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(intr) (of a fore-and-aft sail) to shift suddenly from one side of the vessel to the other when running before the wind, as the result of allowing the wind to catch the leech
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to cause (a sailing vessel) to gybe or (of a sailing vessel) to undergo gybing
noun
Etymology
Origin of gybe
C17: from obsolete Dutch gijben (now gijpen ), of obscure origin
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 team said on Wednesday that Fisher had unclipped his tether and left the cockpit to tidy up a sheet when the boat went into an accidental crash gybe.
From Washington Times ● Mar. 28, 2018
Burling said he thought he could lay through the final gate and then gybe to the finish, but he misjudged it and had to make an extra maneuver, slowing the boat.
From Washington Times ● Jun. 12, 2017
Here Krantzius in the first place beginneth with such a gybe There be many notable things in their manners, &c.
From The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation — Volume 01 by Hakluyt, Richard
The variation, trifling as it was, brought the wind on the opposite quarter, and caused the boom that distended her mainsail to gybe.
From The Water-Witch or, the Skimmer of the Seas by Cooper, James Fenimore
But the thread is cut between us and we will never gybe again, no, never—worlds without end.
From The Lions of the Lord A Tale of the Old West by Wilson, Harry Leon
Instead, it gybed in Luna Rossa’s wind shadow, lost speed and fell off its foils.
From Washington Times ● Mar. 17, 2021
Team New Zealand looked likely to roll Luna Rossa on the first downwind but, as the boats came level, gybed away in a failing breeze.
From Seattle Times ● Mar. 14, 2021
When our mainsheet parted the boom gybed so hard that it opened a seam.
From Wings of the Wind by Harris, Credo Fitch
Her skipper excused his action by stating that he was frightened of heaving-to as he might have carried away his mast and gone ashore, if he had hauled up and gybed.
From King's Cutters and Smugglers 1700-1855 by Chatterton, E. Keble (Edward Keble)
When she marches in, I feel exactly as if the boat had gybed, and the boom come over and knocked me into thirty fathoms of water.
From The Lieutenant-Governor A Novel by Carryl, Guy Wetmore
First Team New Zealand dropped off its foils after gybing in Luna Rossa’s wind shadow and the Italian team sailed away to a massive advantage.
From Seattle Times ● Mar. 15, 2021
Mostyn, intent upon preventing the boat from gybing, had no opportunity of seeing the result of the shot.
From The Wireless Officer by Westerman, Percy F. (Percy Francis)
Putting a boat about, as Fanny had turned the Greyhound, is nautically termed gybing her.
From Hope and Have or, Fanny Grant Among the Indians, A Story for Young People by Optic, Oliver
In a heavy gale, Provident of Brixham risks her mast and gear, gybing to close the sinking pinnace of the torpedoed Formidable, and rescue the exhausted seventy-one men who crowded her.
From Merchantmen-at-arms : the British merchants' service in the war by Bone, David W. (David William)
Bobtail ran to the west of the ledges, and, going entirely round to avoid gybing, he came up into the wind close under the stern of the Penobscot.
From Little Bobtail or The Wreck of the Penobscot. by Optic, Oliver
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.
