tailpole

Noun

tail-pole (plural tail-poles)

1. A wooden pole, usually fifteen to twenty-five long and nine inches in diameter, used to rotate a windmill into the wind.
   • Old post-mills were turned or 'luffed' into the wind by a pole variously called the tail-pole, tail-beam, turning-beam, or tiller-beam.2011, Stanley Freese, Windmills and Millwrighting, Cambridge University Press, page 40

   Synonyms:

   tail-beam, turning-beam, tiller-beam