drabbler
drabbler noun: a piece of canvas laced to the bonnet of a sail, to give it a greater depth or more drop.
Noun
drabbler (plural drabblers)
- A piece of canvas laced to the bonnet of a sail, to give it a greater depth or more drop.
- The next day, merrily pursuing our voyage, we came in sight of the island of Chaneph, where Pantagruel's ship could not arrive, the wind chopping about, and then failing us so that we were becalmed, and could hardly get ahead, tacking about from starboard to larboard, and larboard to starboard...1653, Francis Rabelais [i.e., François Rabelais], translated by [Thomas Urquhart, Peter Anthony Motteux], The Works of Francis Rabelais, Doctor in Physick: Containing Five Books of the Lives, Heroick...
- Then came the voice of the master, which always his mate echoed, ‘‘Let fall your mainsail!” And the echo, “‘Let fall your mainsail!” “Yea, yea!” “On with your bonnets and drabblers!”’ And again came the echo from the mate, ‘‘On with your bonnets and drabblers!”1923, Charles Boardman Hawes, The Dark Frigate, Chapter 6
Forms of drabbler
| plural | drabblers |
|---|---|
| alternative form | drabler |
Origin of drabbler
From drabble + -er.
Questions about drabbler
- What does drabbler mean?
- Drabbler means a piece of canvas laced to the bonnet of a sail, to give it a greater depth or more drop.
- What part of speech is drabbler?
- Drabbler is a noun.
- What is the plural of drabbler?
- The plural of drabbler is drabblers.
Words near drabbler in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: drabbler (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Cite this entry: “drabbler.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/drabbler. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.