Word.ws English Dictionary

drail

/dɹeɪl/

drail noun: a hook with a lead shank.

Noun

drail (plural drails)

  1. A hook with a lead shank.
  2. The piece of lead around the shank of such a hook.
  3. The iron bow of a plough from which the traces draw.

Verb

drail (third-person singular simple present drails, present participle drailing, simple past and past participle drailed)

  1. (intransitive, obsolete) To trawl.
    • drailing for mackerel

Forms of drail

Noun
pluraldrails
Verb
third-person singular presentdrails
present participledrailing
past participledrailed
pastdrailed

Origin of drail

From Middle English *drailen (attested as drailed), a variant of Middle English trailen (“to hang loosely, drag along, drag away”), from a merger of Old French trailer, traillier (“to trail”) and Old English trǣġlian, trǣġelian (“to pluck, pull away”). The alteration of trailen to drailen was probably due to influence from Middle English dragan, drawen (“to drag, draw”).

Words that rhyme with drail

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about drail

What does drail mean?
Drail means a hook with a lead shank.
What part of speech is drail?
Drail can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce drail?
Drail is pronounced /dɹeɪl/.
What is the plural of drail?
The plural of drail is drails.

Words near drail in the dictionary

  1. Drahthaars
  2. Drahunov
  3. Drahunova
  4. Drahura
  5. draids
  6. drail
  7. drailed
  8. drailing
  9. drails
  10. drain
  11. drain away

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: drail (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.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-drail.wav.

Cite this entry: “drail.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/drail. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.