Word.ws English Dictionary

skysail

skysail noun: on historical square-rigged ships, the sail above the royal. Normally it is the uppermost sail, but in some cases it is below the moonraker.

Noun

skysail (plural skysails)

  1. On historical square-rigged ships, the sail above the royal. Normally it is the uppermost sail, but in some cases it is below the moonraker.
    • Never, in the whole voyage, did our crew spring to it in more lively fashion. And lively fashion was needed to save our gear. 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.1914, Jack London, The Mutiny of the Elsinore, Chapter XLVI

Forms of skysail

pluralskysails

Origin of skysail

From sky + sail.

Questions about skysail

What does skysail mean?
Skysail means on historical square-rigged ships, the sail above the royal. Normally it is the uppermost sail, but in some cases it is below the moonraker.
What part of speech is skysail?
Skysail is a noun.
What is the plural of skysail?
The plural of skysail is skysails.

Words near skysail in the dictionary

  1. skyrockety
  2. Skyros
  3. skyrunner
  4. skyrunners
  5. skyrunning
  6. skysail
  7. skysails
  8. skyscape
  9. skyscapes
  10. skyscraper
  11. skyscraper heel

Source and license

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