Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A small square sail above the royal in a square-rigged vessel.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A light sail in a square-rigged vessel, next above the royal. It is sometimes called a skyscraper when it is triangular, also a sky-gazer. See cut under
ship .
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Naut.) The sail set next above the royal. See
Illust. undersail .
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun nautical The
sail set next above theroyal .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun the sail above the royal on a square-rigger
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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The order was given to loose the main-skysail, which is the fifth and highest sail from deck.
Redburn. His First Voyage Herman Melville 1855
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So close were we that I looked to see our far-reeling skysail-yards strike the face of the rock.
CHAPTER XXXVIII 2010
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Poor Sundry Buyers continually pressed his abdomen as he toiled around the deck-capstans; and never was Nancy's face quite so forlorn as when he obeyed the Maltese Cockney's command and went up to loose the mizzen-skysail.
CHAPTER L 2010
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Mr. Pike sent look-outs aloft to every skysail-yard, and the Elsinore slipped along through the smooth sea.
CHAPTER XVIII 2010
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As it was, they cut away the remnants of the mizzen-lower-topsail with their sheath-knives, and they loosed the main-skysail out of its bolt-ropes.
CHAPTER XLVI 2010
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He had picked up some of the names, but he had no idea which sail the mizzen skysail was, nor the fore topgallant.
Wellspring of Chaos Modesitt, L. E. 2004
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In order if possible to get a little more way on the ship, a studding-sail and a skysail were rigged up with two awnings; it did not increase our speed very much, but no doubt it helped a little.
The South Pole; an account of the Norwegian antarctic expedition in the 'Fram', 1910 to 1912 2003
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A dash of the same brine will help keep the ballast right, then a skysail-yard breakfast must be carefully stowed away, in order to give a firmness to the timbers, and on the strength of these two blocks for shoring up the hull, you must begin little by little, and keep on brightening up until you have got the craft all right again.
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Above the courses come the lower topsails, above them the upper topsails, above them the lower topgallant-sails, then the upper topgallant-sails, then the royals, and, on the mainmast, the skysail, though sometimes there are skysails to all masts, and over the main skysail comes a "scraper" or moon-raker.
Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XIII, Nov. 28, 1891 Various
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These braces come down to the ship's sides, or to the heads of the masts fore and aft of those on which the yard is swung; all the mizzen-braces working on the mainmast; the maintopgallant, mainroyal and skysail braces working on the mizzenmast; and the foretopgallant and foreroyal braces working on the mainmast, as is clearly shown in our illustration.
Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XIII, Nov. 28, 1891 Various
chained_bear commented on the word skysail
See usage note on moonsail.
February 24, 2008