SAIL, n. [L. sal, salt.]

1. In navigation, a spread of canvas, or an assemblage of several breadths of canvas, [or some substitute for it,] sewed together with a double seam at the borders, and edged with a cord called the bolt-rope, to be extended on the masts or yards for receiving the impulse of wind by which a ship is driven. The principal sails are the courses or lower sails, the top-sails and top-gallant-sails. – Mar. Dict.
2. In poetry, wings. – Spenser.
3. A ship or other vessel; used in the singular for a single ship, or as a collective name for many. We saw a sail at the leeward. We saw three sail on our starboard quarter. The fleet consists of twenty sail. To loose sails, to unfurl them. To make sail, to extend an additional quantity of sail. To set sail, to expand or spread the sails; and hence, to begin a voyage. To shorten sail, to reduce the extent of sail, or take in a part. To strike sail, to lower the sails suddenly, as in saluting or in sudden gusts of wind. #2. To abate show or pomp. [Colloquial.] – Shak.

1. To be impelled or driven forward by the action of wind upon sails, as a ship on water. A ship sails from New York for Liverpool. She sails ten knots an hour. She sails well close-hauled.
2. To be conveyed in a vessel on water; to pass by water. We sailed from London to Canton.
3. To swim. Little dolphins, when they sail / In the vast shadow of the British whale. – Dryden.
4. To set sail; to begin a voyage. We sailed from New York for Havre, June 15, 1824. We sailed from Cowes for New York, May 10, 1825. – N. W.
5. To be carried in the air, as a balloon.
6. To pass smoothly along. As is a wing'd messenger from heaven, / When he bestrides the lazy pacing clouds, / And sails upon the bosom of the air. – Shak.
7. To fly without striking with the wings.

1. To pass or move upon in a ship, by means of sails. A thousand ships were mann'd to sail the sea. – Dryden. [This use is elliptical, on or over being omitted.]
2. To fly through. Sublime she sails / Th' aerial space, and mounts the winged gales. – Pope.

1. An extent of canvas or other fabric by means of which the wind is made serviceable as a power for propelling vessels through the water.
   
   

   Behoves him now both sail and oar. Milton.

2. To be impelled or driven forward by the action of wind upon sails, as a ship on water] to be impelled on a body of water by the action of steam or other power.
3. To pass or move upon, as in a ship, by means of sails; hence, to move or journey upon (the water) by means of steam or other force.
   
   

   A thousand ships were manned to sail the sea. Dryden.

4. Anything resembling a sail, or regarded as a sail.
5. To move through or on the water; to swim, as a fish or a water fowl.
6. To fly through; to glide or move smoothly through.
   
   

   Sublime she sails
   The aërial space, and mounts the wingèd gales. Pope.

7. A wing; a van.
   
   
   [Poetic]

   Like an eagle soaring
   To weather his broad sails. Spenser.

8. To be conveyed in a vessel on water; to pass by water; as, they sailed from London to Canton.
9. To direct or manage the motion of, as a vessel; as, to sail one's own ship.
   
   
   Totten.
10. The extended surface of the arm of a windmill.
11. To set sail; to begin a voyage.
12. A sailing vessel; a vessel of any kind; a craft.
    
    

    * In this sense, the plural has usually the same form as the singular; as, twenty sail were in sight.

13. To move smoothly through the air; to glide through the air without apparent exertion, as a bird.
    
    

    As is a winged messenger of heaven, . . .
    When he bestrides the lazy pacing clouds,
    And sails upon the bosom of the air. Shak.

14. A passage by a sailing vessel; a journey or excursion upon the water.
    
    

    * Sails are of two general kinds, fore-and-aft sails, and square sails. Square sails are always bent to yards, with their foot lying across the line of the vessel. Fore-and-aft sails are set upon stays or gaffs with their foot in line with the keel. A fore- and-aft sail is triangular, or quadrilateral with the after leech longer than the fore leech. Square sails are quadrilateral, but not necessarily square. See Phrases under Fore, a., and Square, a.; also, Bark, Brig, Schooner, Ship, Stay.

    Sail burton (Naut.), a purchase for hoisting sails aloft for bending. -- Sail fluke (Zoöl.), the whiff. -- Sail hook, a small hook used in making sails, to hold the seams square. -- Sail loft, a loft or room where sails are cut out and made. -- Sail room (Naut.), a room in a vessel where sails are stowed when not in use. -- Sail yard (Naut.), the yard or spar on which a sail is extended. -- Shoulder-of- mutton sail (Naut.), a triangular sail of peculiar form. It is chiefly used to set on a boat's mast. -- To crowd sail. (Naut.) See under Crowd. -- To loose sails (Naut.), to unfurl or spread sails. -- To make sail (Naut.), to extend an additional quantity of sail. -- To set a sail (Naut.), to extend or spread a sail to the wind. -- To set sail (Naut.), to unfurl or spread the sails; hence, to begin a voyage. -- To shorten sail (Naut.), to reduce the extent of sail, or take in a part. -- To strike sail (Naut.), to lower the sails suddenly, as in saluting, or in sudden gusts of wind; hence, to acknowledge inferiority; to abate pretension. -- Under sail, having the sails spread.