mizzen
Americannoun
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a fore-and-aft sail set on a mizzenmast.
adjective
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of or relating to a mizzenmast.
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noting a sail, yard, boom, etc., or any rigging belonging to a mizzen lower mast or to some upper mast of a mizzenmast.
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noting any stay running aft and upward to the head of a mizzen lower mast or some specified upper mast of a mizzenmast.
mizzen topmast stay.
noun
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a sail set on a mizzenmast
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short for mizzenmast
adjective
Etymology
Origin of mizzen
1375–1425; late Middle English meson, mesan, probably < Italian mezzana
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.
I now have to keep fencing with Accrux while I have managed to throw your sword flying and getting stuck into the mizzen mast.
From Economist ● Nov. 15, 2012
He lowers his mizzen and rejects her once again.
From Time Magazine Archive
Then, languidly raising his hairy legs and wagging them like flags, the old hand semaphored a request for jam to a pal in the port mizzen.
From Time Magazine Archive
Isabel and the Sea will make even a coal miner imagine himself "running free under number-two jib, staysail, mainsail, and mizzen . . . setting course for the volcanic island of Stromboli."
From Time Magazine Archive
In the British navy, admirals are distinguished into three classes—Ad′mirals, Vice′-ad′mirals, and Rear′-ad′mirals; the admiral carrying his colour at the main, the vice-admiral at the fore, and the rear-admiral at the mizzen mast-head.
From Chambers's Twentieth Century Dictionary (part 1 of 4: A-D) by Various
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.
