spritsail
Americannoun
noun
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a rectangular sail mounted on a sprit in some 19th-century small vessels
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(in medieval rigging) a square sail mounted on a yard on the bowsprit
Etymology
Origin of spritsail
1425–75; late Middle English sprete seyle ( see sprit, sail); compare Dutch sprietzeil
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.
To remedy the roundness of the hull, Lethierry had fitted out a boom at the bowsprit, which allowed him to add a false spritsail to the regular one.
From Toilers of the Sea by Victor Hugo
I set all the sails in the ship, the mainsail with two bonnets, the foresail, spritsail, mizzen, main topsail, and the boat’s sail on the poop.
From The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503 by Julius E. Olson
I could just make out through the gloom that the boat was no longer in her place, and presently I saw several figures carrying some bags go forward and disappear from the spritsail yard.
From The Two Whalers Adventures in the Pacific by William Henry Giles Kingston
All that day and through the night that followed the schooner drove, rolling and plunging before the seas, into the north-east, to the pulling of the spritsail.
From The Frozen Pirate by W. Clark (William Clark) Russell
But in summer time the trade was also carried on by open spritsail boats of from eight to ten tons.
From King's Cutters and Smugglers 1700-1855 by E. Keble (Edward Keble) Chatterton
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.
