Word.ws English Dictionary

windsail

windsail noun: a wide tube or funnel of canvas, used to convey a stream of air for ventilation into the lower compartments of a vessel.

Noun

windsail (plural windsails)

  1. A wide tube or funnel of canvas, used to convey a stream of air for ventilation into the lower compartments of a vessel.
    • We were ventilated by a big canvas windsail, opening between the fore and main masts, and running down into the hold.1953, John Masefield, The Conway, page 35
  2. The sail or vane of a windmill.
    • The dome in turning carries with it the windsails, M N, and their axle, P Q ; and thus the latter may be made to coincide with the direction of the wind, or the plane in which the radii of the sials turn may be made perpendicular to that direction.1868, The English Cyclopaedia, page 941

Forms of windsail

pluralwindsails

Origin of windsail

From wind + sail.

Questions about windsail

What does windsail mean?
Windsail means a wide tube or funnel of canvas, used to convey a stream of air for ventilation into the lower compartments of a vessel.
What part of speech is windsail?
Windsail is a noun.
What is the plural of windsail?
The plural of windsail is windsails.

Words near windsail in the dictionary

  1. winds of change
  2. winds off
  3. winds one's neck in
  4. winds up
  5. winds up one's bottoms
  6. windsail
  7. windsails
  8. WINDSAT
  9. Windscale
  10. windscoop
  11. windscoops

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: windsail (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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