sail

/seɪl/

sail noun: a piece of fabric attached to a boat and arranged such that it causes the wind to drive the boat along. The sail may be attached to the boat via a combination of mast, spars and ropes.

Image: « ВЭС ». ( СПб ; 1914 год ), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun (1)

sail (countable and uncountable, plural sails)

A piece of fabric attached to a boat and arranged such that it causes the wind to drive the boat along. The sail may be attached to the boat via a combination of mast, spars and ropes.
- When we haue laught to ſee the ſailes conceiue / And grow big bellied with the wanton winde; […]c. 1595–1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, “A Midsommer Nights Dreame”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First...
(uncountable) The concept of a sail or sails, as if a substance.
- Take in sail: a storm is coming.
Synonyms:

canvass
(uncountable) The power harnessed by a sail or sails, or the use of this power for travel or transport.
A trip in a boat, especially a sailboat.
- Let's go for a sail.
(dated, plural "sail") A sailing vessel; a vessel of any kind; a craft.
- Twenty sail were in sight.
- "[…] The quay is upwards of 1,000 feet in length, and capable of accommodating more than 100 sail of traders; and there are generally a considerable number of vessels of from 40 to 300 tons burden, from various parts of the world, waiting to receive their cargoes."1945 May and June, Charles E. Lee, “The Penrhyn Railway and its Locomotives—1”, in Railway Magazine, page 142, text published 1848
The conning tower of a submarine.
The blade of a windmill.
- So furious had been the gusts, that high buildings in town had had the lead stripped off their roofs; and in the country, trees had been torn up, and sails of windmills carried away; and gloomy accounts had come in from the coast, of shipwreck and death.1860 December – 1861 August, Charles Dickens, chapter XX, in Great Expectations […], volume II, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published October 1861, →OCLC, page 327
A tower-like structure found on the dorsal (topside) surface of submarines.
The floating organ of siphonophores, such as the Portuguese man-of-war.
A sailfish.
- We caught three sails today.
an outward projection of the spine, occurring in certain dinosaurs and synapsids
Anything resembling a sail, such as a wing.
- Like an eagle […]soaring / / To weather his broad sails.1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book V, Canto IV”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 42

Verb

sail (third-person singular simple present sails, present participle sailing, simple past and past participle sailed)

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 steam or other power.
- Fair ship, that from the Italian shore,
  ⁠Sailest the placid ocean-plains
  ⁠With my lost Arthur’s loved remains,
  Spread thy full wings, and waft him o’er.1850, [Alfred, Lord Tennyson], “Canto IX”, in In Memoriam, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC
To move through or on the water; to swim, as a fish or a waterfowl.
To ride in a boat, especially a sailboat.
(intransitive) To set sail; to begin a voyage.
- We sail for Australia tomorrow.
To move briskly and gracefully through the air.
- As is a winged messenger of heaven, […] / When he bestrides the lazy pacing clouds, / And sails upon the bosom of the air.c. 1591–1595 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Romeo and Ivliet”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and...
- [flavor text of the card "Spirit of the Winds"] A spirit of the wind that freely sails the skies.2002 March 20, Kazuki Takahashi, Yu-Gi-Oh! Forbidden Memories (PlayStation video game, North American version), Konami
(intransitive) To move briskly but sedately.
- The duchess sailed haughtily out of the room.
(transitive) To deal out (cards) from a distance by impelling them across a surface.
- He would sit his hat across the room, and we would sail cards into it.2007, Johnny Hughes, Texas Poker Wisdom, page 22

Noun (2) capitalized: SAIL

SAIL (plural SAILs)

(abbreviation, acronym) Acronym of snow avalanche impact landform.

sail meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

sail in Hindi

a piece of fabric attached to a boat: पाल pāl

sail in Tamil

a piece of fabric attached to a boat: கப்பற்பாய் kappaṟpāy

sail in Marathi

नौकानयन करण्यासाठी, नौकानयन करणे, नौकाविहार करण्यासाठी

sail in Urdu

a piece of fabric attached to a boat: پال pāl

More languagesFewer languages

sail in Bengali: পাল pal
sail in Telugu: తెరచాప teracāpa, పడవ ప్రయాణం paḍava prayāṇaṁ
sail in Kannada: ಹಾಯಿ hāyi
sail in Gujarati: આભેસ ābhes
sail in Odia: ପାଲ pāla
sail in Sanskrit: प्लवते plavate
sail in Nepali: नौकायन गर्न
sail in Pashto: بادبان bādbān, بادوان bādwān
sail in Tagalog: layag
sail in Arabic: شِرَاع širāʕ, أَبْحَرَ ʔabḥara
sail in Malay: layar, berkelana
sail in Indonesian: layar
sail in Thai: ใบเรือ bai rʉʉa, ใบ bai
sail in Vietnamese: buồm
sail in Myanmar: လင်းယဉ် lang:yany

Examples of sail in a sentence

By easing the halyard, the luff of the sail was made to sag to leeward.
They pirated the tanker and sailed to a port where they could sell the ship and cargo.
If we sail off at noon, when will we be across?

All 40 example sentences with sail

Synonyms of sail

canvass

Forms of sail

Noun
plural	sails
plural	SAILs
Verb
third-person singular present	sails
present participle	sailing
past participle	sailed
past	sailed

Past tense of sail: sailed

Plural of sail: sails

Origin of sail

From Middle English saile, sayle, seil, seyl, from Old English seġl, from Proto-West Germanic *segl, from Proto-Germanic *seglą. Cognate with West Frisian seil, Low German Segel, Dutch zeil, German Segel, Danish sejl, Swedish segel.

From Middle English sailen, saylen, seilen, seilien, from Old English seġlan, siġlan (“to sail”), from Proto-West Germanic *siglijan, from *siglijaną. Cognate with West Frisian sile, Low German seilen, Dutch zeilen, German segeln, Danish sejle, Swedish segla, Icelandic sigla.

Phrases with sail

22 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with sail

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about sail

What does sail mean?: Sail means a piece of fabric attached to a boat and arranged such that it causes the wind to drive the boat along. The sail may be attached to the boat via a combination of mast, spars and ropes.
What is sail in Hindi?: Sail in Hindi is पाल (pāl). See Sail meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is sail?: Sail can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce sail?: Sail is pronounced /seɪl/.
What is the plural of sail?: The plural of sail is sails.

Words near sail in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: sail (page history and authors); SAIL (page history and authors); sail (Marathi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); sail (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). 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: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-sail.ogg.

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