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Sail   Listen
verb
Sail  v. i.  (past & past part. sailed; pres. part. sailing)  
1.
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 the action of steam or other power.
2.
To move through or on the water; to swim, as a fish or a water fowl.
3.
To be conveyed in a vessel on water; to pass by water; as, they sailed from London to Canton.
4.
To set sail; to begin a voyage.
5.
To move smoothly through the air; to glide through the air without apparent exertion, as a bird. "As is a winged messenger of heaven,... When he bestrides the lazy pacing clouds, And sails upon the bosom of the air."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Sail" Quotes from Famous Books



... "No woman knows anything about seafaring, but Portia is right. The ship is headed for the Azores, which is the first tack needed in a windward sail for London under ...
— The Pursuit of the House-Boat • John Kendrick Bangs

... peaceful people, but 'ware who touches us Weighty little word—woman's native watchdog and guardian (No!) When we despair or discolour things, it is our senses in revolt Who can really think, and not think hopefully? Who venerate when they love With that I sail into the dark Women with brains, ...
— Quotations from the Works of George Meredith • David Widger

... continents meet, Europe being represented by the Mediterranean Sea. The other two, Asia and Africa, are joined by a strip of land called the Isthmus of Suez, about a hundred miles across. For ages men had it in their minds to cut through this strip so that their ships could sail straight from the Mediterranean into the Red Sea on the other side of the Isthmus. But it wasn't quite so easy to do as it sounds, for the land was mostly desert sand, and if you have ever tried to ...
— Round the Wonderful World • G. E. Mitton

... already deep in a game; money was pushed to and fro. The contagion fastened like a plague upon Le Gardeur, who sat down at the table, drew forth a full purse, and pulling up every anchor of restraint, set sail on the flood-tide of drinking and gaming which lasted without ceasing until ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby

... days of Napoleon their skeletons swung from long rows of gibbets on all the coasts of Europe, as a terror and a warning. But their losses were easily repaired, and sometimes they cruised in fleets of seventy or eighty sail, defying the navies of England and France. It was not until after England, in Nelson's time, had acquired supremacy in the Mediterranean that this dreadful scourge was destroyed. Americans, however, have just ground for pride in ...
— The Critical Period of American History • John Fiske

... low wall in front of the station and thought it over. After all, it seemed to him that it would be better to be on a fine ship and have a chance of fighting with the French than to sail in a merchantman. At the end of five years he would be twenty, and could pass as a mate if he chose, or settle on land. He would have liked to consult Miss Warden, but this was out of the question. He knew the men who ...
— By Conduct and Courage • G. A. Henty

... number of years, the late James Forten, of Philadelphia, was the proprietor of one of the principal sail manufactories, constantly employing a large number of men, black and white, supplying a large number of masters and owners of vessels, with full rigging ...
— The Condition, Elevation, Emigration, and Destiny of the Colored People of the United States • Martin R. Delany

... no more gabble of tongues. The French devils were tired, too, and evidently waiting for the judgment. And as he waited he remembered back in his life to the time when he had signed the contract and set sail in the ship for Tahiti. Times had been hard in his sea-coast village, and when he indentured himself to labour for five years in the South Seas at fifty cents Mexican a day, he had thought himself ...
— When God Laughs and Other Stories • Jack London

... helm can bear With him must sail across the foam; All of fit age must follow their liege, Those who are not may tarry ...
— King Hacon's Death and Bran and the Black Dog - two ballads - - - Translator: George Borrow • Thomas J. Wise

... the whole amount of American produce which finally reaches China and is there consumed is not comprised in these tables, which show only the direct trade. Many vessels with American products on board sail with a primary destination to other countries, but ultimately dispose of more or less of their cargoes in the ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Tyler - Section 2 (of 3) of Volume 4: John Tyler • Compiled by James D. Richardson

... him safely. The only creature now kept for this purpose is the largest of our birds (the caldecta), about six feet long from head to tail, and with wings measuring thrice as much from tip to tip. They will sail through the air and carry their rider up to places otherwise inaccessible. But they are little used except by the hunters, partly because the danger is thought too great, partly because they cannot rise more than about 4000 feet from ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg

... a ship of pearl, And her milky silken sail Seemed by magic to unfurl, Puffed before a fairy gale; Shimmering o'er the purple deep, Out across the silvery bar, Softly as the wings of sleep Sailed ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes

... Good day, missus! Good day, all about," he said in cheerful salute, as he trundled towards us like a ship's barrel in full sail. "Me new cook, me—" and then Sam appeared and towed him ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn

... for the Peninsula. Arrival in the Tagus. The City of Lisbon, with its Contents. Sail for Figuera. Landing extraordinary. Billet ditto. The City of Coimbra. A hard Case. A cold Case, in which a favourite Scotch Dance is introduced. Climate. ...
— Adventures in the Rifle Brigade, in the Peninsula, France, and the Netherlands - from 1809 to 1815 • Captain J. Kincaid

... girls, at any rate, formed the breeze in his sail and the only directing determinant force he knew; when anything happened—and he was under the impression that things DID happen—they were there for it to have happened TO. Without them in short, as he felt, he would have been the tail without the kite. The wind ...
— The Reverberator • Henry James

... rest, an old reading parson named Lowes, not far from Framlingham, was one that was hanged, who confessed that he had two imps, and that one of them was always putting him upon doing mischief; and he being near the sea as he saw a ship under sail, it moved him to send it to sink the ship, and he consented and saw the ship sink before them.' Sterne, Hopkins's coadjutor, in an Apology published not long afterwards, asserts that Lowes had been ...
— The Superstitions of Witchcraft • Howard Williams

... not blame me that Tuscany should have passed beneath me unnoticed, as the monotonous sea passes beneath a boat in full sail. Blame all those days of marching; hundreds upon hundreds of miles that exhausted the powers of the mind. Blame the fiery and angry sky of Etruria, that compelled most of my way to be taken at night. Blame St Augustine, who misled me in his Confessions by talking like an African of 'the ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc

... shore; and, that done, she was directed to rejoin us at Trn Island. As long as the norther coursed high, she beat us hollow; in the afternoon, however, when the gale, as usual, abated, she fell off, perhaps purposely, not wishing to pass a night in the open. By sunset her white sail had clean disappeared, having ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton

... he left an impression on the two hundred members who were present which was perhaps one of the best tributes ever paid him. After his farewell to the King, his last visit to Broome and to Sir John Jellicoe and the Grand Fleet, he set sail for the shore he never reached, and the end had come. It was perhaps the most perfect end of such a life—a life full of high endeavor and completion. The service he had rendered his country by raising her armies and foreseeing the probable duration of the war could not have been performed by any ...
— World's War Events, Vol. II • Various

... Up to the time of his departure he remained shut up in his chamber, and only left it to get into the carriage which conveyed him to Amsterdam. There, as was known, lay a passenger vessel ready to sail for Hamburg, and in this the ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach

... Etta, with Dick on board, started for Chokoloskee. The weather was bad, with a succession of squalls from the southwest, and the captain kept in the lee of the line of keys instead of taking the straight course across the Gulf. But he carried all sail till the rotten main-sheet parted at the boom, and when he came up in the wind to lower the sail the main throat halyard refused to unreeve. Before an order was given Dick was half way up the mast and soon came riding down to the ...
— Dick in the Everglades • A. W. Dimock

... fish and sail around looking for Scoops ready to shed their crystals," Jennifer reminded him. "Still, Uncle Charlie has talked about settling in the Township and standing for Council election. Can you ...
— Traders Risk • Roger Dee

... a sailor's promise, weather-bound: "Strike sail, slip cable, here the bark be moored For once, the awning stretched, the poles assured! Noontide above; except the wave's crisp dash, Or buzz of colibri, or tortoise' splash, The margin's silent: out with every spoil Made in our tracking, coil by mighty coil, This serpent ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke

... to give birth to the icebergs in tumult and thunderous uproar. But Lady Florimel felt merely the loneliness. One deserted boat lay on the long sand, like the bereft and useless half of a double shell. Without show of life the moveless cliffs lengthened far into a sea where neither white sail deepened the purple and gold, nor red one enriched it with a colour it could not itself produce. Neither hope nor aspiration awoke in her heart at the sight. Was she beginning to be tired of her companionless liberty? Had the long stanzas, bound by so many ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald

... to its peculiar construction, Harmouth High Street acts as a funnel for the off-shore breezes; they rush through it as they rush through Windy Gap, that rift in the coast before which the wary fisherman slackens sail. Just such an air was careering seawards when Mr. Pilkington was about to perform the difficult feat of folding his paper backwards. It smote one side of the broadsheet and tore it from his grasp, making it flutter like a sail escaped from the lanyard. The breeze dropped; ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair

... moment almost transfixed with surprise; but as she saw my grandmother preparing to advance upon her—her ample skirts and portly person somewhat resembling a ship under full sail—she made rather an abrupt retreat; discomposing the nerves of a small nursery-maid, whom she encountered in the passage, to such a degree that, as the girl expressed it, "she was took all ...
— A Grandmother's Recollections • Ella Rodman

... whose voyage is on the track of the trade winds nevertheless needs more than dead reckoning for his course; he needs to take the sun at noon, to study the heavens at night, and to con his chart. To follow one's interior drift only is to sail the ocean without chart or compass. The sail that is wafted by the impulses of the divine Spirit in the interior life must have, besides, the guarantee of divine veracity in the external order to justify him. This he ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott

... "The day you sail for France, Brandon shall go free and shall again have his old post at court. I like the fellow as a good companion, and really believe you are ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major

... here, not then in operation, and some houses for the mill hands to live in when they were at work. This prospective city was called Grand Haven. There was one schooner in the river loaded with lumber, ready to sail for the west side of the lake as soon as the wind should change and become favorable, and we engaged passage for a dollar and a half each. While waiting for the wind we visited the woods in search of game, but found none. ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly

... base and unworthy Purposes. It is the Business of Religion and Philosophy not so much to extinguish our Passions, as to regulate and direct them to valuable well-chosen Objects: When these have pointed out to us which Course we may lawfully steer, tis no Harm to set out all our Sail; if the Storms and Tempests of Adversity should rise upon us, and not suffer us to make the Haven where we would be, it will however prove no small Consolation to us in these Circumstances, that we have neither mistaken our Course, ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele

... not looking very well, Evelyn. You don't sleep—you want a change. The Medusa is at Cowes; what do you say for a sail?" ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore

... captain to himself. "That boy is too full of mischief. He needs a sea voyage to soak some of it out of him. But that's the way with mothers. Well, I'll wait a while. I think something may happen to make her change her mind before I sail." ...
— Bob the Castaway • Frank V. Webster

... roused himself from the bitter reverie and fled to Starhaven through the darkness. There was still a light in the little sailors' tavern; and, entering, he asked the woman who kept it, "if she knew of any ship which was going to sail ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar

... us through the pathless waters of science; we have no revelation, at least on the subject of astronomy, and of the unnumbered inhabitable worlds that float in the ocean of ether; and we are bound therefore to sail, as the mariners of ancient times sailed, always within sight of land. One of the earliest maxims of ordinary prudence, is that we ought ever to correct the reports of one sense by the assistance ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin

... Longings poignant with pains and tears Enfold, and fill my soul That aches with hopes and fears As thy chariot wheels' roll Sets fire with torches of gold To my words, my silences, my singing, And to this black pyre of my life To take my being on the wings of thy embracing To sail away, far away from man's hate and strife Where only love reigns on ...
— Sandhya - Songs of Twilight • Dhan Gopal Mukerji

... the tedious trip when they drove into the busy and bustling town of Leavenworth, one bright autumnal morning. All along the way they had picked up much information about the movement of steamers, and they were delighted to find that the steamboat "New Lucy" was lying at the levee, ready to sail on the afternoon of the very day they would be in Leavenworth. They camped, for the last time, in the outskirts of the town, a good-natured border-State man affording them shelter in his hay-barn, where they slept soundly all through ...
— The Boy Settlers - A Story of Early Times in Kansas • Noah Brooks

... of sailing in a canoe the Lateen rig is the safest, most easily handled, and the best all-round sailing outfit. For a seventeen-foot canoe a sail having forty square feet of surface is to be recommended, and, in all except very high winds, this can ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America

... wistfully, in vain Questioned the distance for the yearning sail, That, leaning landward, should have stretched again White arms wide ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various

... in their middle, and the beams were fastened with ropes and pillars; and the length of every beam was six hand-breadths, and its breadth was three (hand-breadths). And the ring was hung on the hook in the pillar; and the hanging was rolled on it like the sail of a ship. It follows that the hanging extended from the pillar two cubits and a half on one side, and two cubits and a half on the other side; and so with the second pillar. This teaches that between each pillar there were five cubits. The beams were coupled with ropes and pillars, and they ...
— Hebrew Literature

... me so much that I gradually edged nearer to them. The species seldom objects to the proximity of a stout little man with a prosaic pipe in his mouth and a pair of light blue eyes, handicapped by spectacles, that seem always to be looking for a sail on the horizon. In fact, I never attract any attention anywhere, unless my wife is along, and then I am only too proud and happy to shine in ...
— The Making of Mary • Jean Forsyth

... goods, embarked in a vessel, which we ourselves freighted, and set sail with a favorable wind. After sailing about a month, we arrived, without any accident, at a port, where we landed, and had a most advantageous sale for our merchandise. I, in particular, sold mine so well that I gained ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Anonymous

... Atlantic Ocean, sir, when Mr Christopher Columbus set sail in his ship to find land. That was jumping right into ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn

... night of February 13, 1797, an English fleet of fifteen ships of the line, in close order and in readiness for instant battle, was under easy sail off Cape St. Vincent. It was a moonless night, black with haze, and the great ships moved in silence like gigantic spectres over the sea. Every now and again there came floating from the south-east the dull sound of a ...
— Deeds that Won the Empire - Historic Battle Scenes • W. H. Fitchett

... girl laid on the table a worn red morocco shopping bag with the inevitable top-gallant sail of frayed lace handkerchief flying from a corner of it. After she had ordered a small beer from the immediate waiter she took from her bag a box of cigarettes and lighted one with slightly exaggerated ease of manner. Then she looked again in the eyes ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry

... were to grow as the day advanced? The wind was high, and to secure the steadiness of my instrument I was forced to retreat behind a projection of the bastionet, place stones upon its stand, and, further, to avail myself of the shelter of a sail. My practised men fastened the sail at the top, and loaded it with boulders at the bottom. It was tried severely, but it ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall

... and Thrace, as the places whither Jehoshaphat's fleet sailed, are in our other copies Ophir and Tarshish, and the place whence it sailed is in them Eziongeber, which lay on the Red Sea, whence it was impossible for any ships to sail to Pontus or Thrace; so that Josephus's copy differed from our other copies, as is further plain from his own words, which render what we read, that "the ships were broken at Eziongeber, from their unwieldy greatness." ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus

... November, 1732, all arrangements having been completed, the "Anne" set sail for the Colony of Georgia, accompanied by Oglethorpe, who furnished his own cabin, and laid in provisions not only for himself, but for his fellow-passengers. On the 13th of January, 1733, the "Anne" anchored in Charleston harbor. From Charleston the vessel sailed to Port Royal; and ...
— Stories Of Georgia - 1896 • Joel Chandler Harris

... of the wealth of all the east parts of the world which is infinite. Through the shortness of the voyage, we should be able to sell all manner of merchandise brought from thence far better cheap than either the Portugal or Spaniard doth or may do. Also we might sail to divers very rich countries, both civil and others, out of both their jurisdiction [that of the Portuguese and Spaniards], where there is to be found great abundance of gold, silver, precious stones, cloth of gold, silks, all manner of spices, grocery wares, ...
— Adventurers of the Far North - A Chronicle of the Frozen Seas • Stephen Leacock

... you living?" he asked abruptly. "It doesn't matter where," she answered. "I sail for America in ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... built for emigrants of various faiths in the station or "model town" of the Hamburg-American Company, for use while waiting to sail. ...
— History of the United States, Volume 6 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews

... on the 13th September, 1782, and all the resources of power and science were exhausted by the assailants in the fruitless attempt. On the side of the sea they brought to bear against the fortress forty-six sail of the line and a countless fleet of gun and mortar boats. But their chief hope lay in the floating batteries planned by D'Arcon, an eminent French engineer, and built at the cost of half a million sterling. They were ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 711, August 17, 1889 • Various

... of probable consequences, fleets of merchantmen set sail from Boston, Philadelphia, and other ports in the spring of the year, with cargoes of fish and grain to barter for sugar, coffee, and rum at Martinique, Antigua, and St. Kitts. The traffic promised to be most lucrative. But disaster overtook ...
— Union and Democracy • Allen Johnson

... phlegmatism; quite the contrary. It does mean depth as opposed to shallowness, bigness as opposed to littleness, and vision as opposed to spiritual myopia. It means dignity, poise, aplomb, balance. It means that there is sufficient ballast to hold the ship steady on its way, no matter how much sail it spreads. When we see serenity, we are quite aware of other spiritual qualities that foster it and lift it into view. We know that courage is one of the hidden pillars on which it rests and that sincerity ...
— The Reconstructed School • Francis B. Pearson

... he was writing to his brother, and that his intentions were harmless; but he was not believed, and was expelled from the House. Later the Continental Congress adjudged him guilty, and ordered him confined in jail. Released later on account of his health, he was allowed to sail for the West Indies. His vessel was ...
— The Siege of Boston • Allen French

... triumphs of the art of bridge construction." Its span exceeded that of any arch then known, being 236 feet, with a rise of 34 feet, the springing commencing at 95 feet above the bed of the river; and its height was such as to allow vessels of 300 tons burden to sail underneath without striking their masts. Mr. Stephenson characterised the bridge as "a structure which, as regards its proportions and the small quantity of material employed in its construction, ...
— The Life of Thomas Telford by Smiles • Samuel Smiles

... dark blue with a narrow red border on all four sides; centered is a red-bordered, pointed, vertical ellipse containing a beach scene, outrigger canoe with sail, and a palm tree with the word GUAM superimposed in bold red letters; US ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... (chiefly the last), which render it a little less unfinished (but more unintelligible) than before. If, therefore, you review it, let it be from the published copies and not from the first sketch. I shall not sail for this month, and shall be in town again next week, when I shall be happy to hear from you but more glad to see you. You know I have no time or turn for correspondence(!). But you also know, I hope, that I am ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron

... nature, that we neither of us know, after all, whether she may not have dropped among us from the moon; for her talk runs upon golden castles, crystal domes, and Heaven knows what extravagances beside. What, however, she related with most distinctness was this: that while she was once taking a sail with her mother on the great lake, she fell out of the boat into the water; and that when she first recovered her senses, she was here under our trees, where the gay scenes of the shore ...
— Undine - I • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque

... myself for their service, they would render me all the justice that I had cause for hoping from gentlemen of honour and probity. The ships destined for Hudson's Bay and the execution of my design were ready to make sail, & myself being all prepared for embarking, I took leave of the gentlemen of the Company in giving them fresh assurances of the good success of my voyage if God did me the favour of preserving me from the dangers to which I went to expose myself; ...
— Voyages of Peter Esprit Radisson • Peter Esprit Radisson

... regret they left Kandy, and were soon in Colombo again. The Guardian-Mother was announced to sail the next day early in the afternoon. The time for parting with Lord Tremlyn, Sir Modava Rao, and Dr. Ferrolan had nearly arrived. The hosts of the party had provided a grand dinner for the last one. The governor and a ...
— Across India - Or, Live Boys in the Far East • Oliver Optic

... felt-hats,—that they could scarcely recognize each other. Theopompus provided them with ordinary Greek dresses, and, an hour after Zopyrus' arrest, they met the splendidly-got-up Syloson on the shore of the Nile, entered a boat belonging to him and manned by his slaves, and, after a short sail, favored by the wind, reached Sais,—which lay above the waters of the inundation like an island,—before the burning midsummer sun had reached ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... at will; where the islands, flung into its midst, have pressed it farther from their shores, and its waves have spread widely over the earth, encountering neither cliffs nor hills. The Cossacks, alighting from their horses, entered the ferry-boat, and after a three hours' sail reached the shores of the island of Khortitz, where at that time stood the Setch, which so ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol

... too proud, what a press she bore! Royal, and all her royals wore. Sharp with her, shorten sail! Too late; lost; gone ...
— Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins - Now First Published • Gerard Manley Hopkins

... mother country. In order to facilitate the regulation of the trade by the Casa de Contratacion, it was concentrated first in Seville, and when the Guadalquivir was found to be becoming too shallow for the growing tonnage of ships, at Cadiz. Merchant vessels were required for their protection to sail in convoy. The convoys or flotas sailed in October first to Cartagena in South America, and from thence to Nombre de Dios or, in later times, Porto Bello. The yearly fairs at these places received the imports from Europe and the colonial trade of the Pacific coast, first collected at ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... ten men, and a luggage consisting of sixty-five packages of goods, about six hundred weight of biscuit, two hundred weight of pork, and three bushels of peas, for the men's provisions: two oil-cloths to cover the goods, a sail, and an axe, a towing-line, a kettle, and a sponge to bail out the water; together with a quantity of gum, bark, and watape, to repair the canoe. An European, on seeing these slender vessels, thus laden, heaped up, and their sides not more than six inches out of the water, would ...
— Travels in North America, From Modern Writers • William Bingley

... Our gray sail cast The only cloud that flecked the foamless sea; And weary at last Beside the mast One fell to slumber with a dreamy face, And — we ...
— Poems: Patriotic, Religious, Miscellaneous • Abram J. Ryan, (Father Ryan)

... Sometimes she'd spend the evening aboard, and sometimes they'd go off and spend it somewhere else. She 'ad a fancy for the cabin, I think, and the cap'n told me that she 'ad said when they were married she was going to sail ...
— Ship's Company, The Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs

... expended in these preliminary lessons will be well spent. It would be an act of folly to attempt to actually sail the craft without them. ...
— Flying Machines - Construction and Operation • W.J. Jackman and Thos. H. Russell

... of anti-Semitism those who refuse to be deceived by mere appearances. It is high time that the Jews should realise that few things do more to foster anti-Semite feeling than this very tendency to sail under false colours and conceal their true identity. The Zionist and the orthodox Jewish nationalist have long ago won the respect and admiration of the world. No race has ever defied assimilation so stubbornly and so successfully, and the modern tendency of individual Jews to repudiate what is ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,

... as well as I was bound for Smyrna, and we agreed to sail together in an Ionian brigantine. We did not charter the vessel, but we made our arrangement with the captain upon such terms that we could be put ashore upon any part of the coast that we might choose. We sailed, and day after day the vessel lay dawdling on the sea ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake

... wonderful intellectual awakening. The rule of the monastery is unknown, but it is probable that it could not have been, at the first, of the Benedictine type. Columba's followers traveled as missionaries and teachers to all parts of Europe, and it is said, they dared to sail in their small boats ...
— A Short History of Monks and Monasteries • Alfred Wesley Wishart

... "We sail Monday on the St. Paul. Mizzi is with me. I broke my word to you. But you lied to me about the letters. I found them the week before the concert. I shall bring her back with me or stay to fight for Germany. ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber

... sea begin, Where the shining wake of a steamer's track Is barred by the tow of the tugboats black, Where slim yachts dip to the singing spray And a gay wind whistles the world away— Here sad ships lie which will sail no more, But new ships build on the noisy shore, And always the breath of the wind and tide Whispers the lure of the sea outside, Till now and to-morrow and yesterday Are linked by the spell of ...
— Fires of Driftwood • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay

... smaller area in that portion of the prison which was nearest Farringdon Street, denominated and called 'the Painted Ground,' from the fact of its walls having once displayed the semblance of various men-of-war in full sail, and other artistical effects achieved in bygone times by some imprisoned ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens

... the ruins of a great fort, slowly crumbling away under the hand of Time. No fleets now sail against Pitius, no pirates land on the barren cape—there is nothing to steal. Even ...
— A Tramp's Sketches • Stephen Graham

... quit England for ever, as even Jim, for whom, you must remember, every sovereign represented twenty shillings' worth of beer, could not refuse without a qualm. He hesitated, and Maud's face brightened with a ray of hope that quivered in her eyes like sunlight. "To sail next week," said he slowly; "to take my last look of ye to-day. Them's the articles. My last look. Standing there in the daylight—a real lady! And never to come back ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville

... land there and find out," said Steve eagerly. "I should like that. Would Captain Marsham sail there?" ...
— Steve Young • George Manville Fenn

... clearly[1] that the icebergs nowadays usually sail down into the oceans without a scrap of dbris of any ...
— Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel • Ignatius Donnelly

... black lips baked We could not laugh nor wail; Through utter drought all dumb we stood! I bit my arm, I sucked the blood, And cried, A sail! a sail! ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester

... was by no means expected of him, for he was to set sail at Flushing and land at Loredo in Spain. There Postmaster-General de Tassis would furnish him ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... where husbands and wives, luxuriant complications, made the air too tropical. In the boat they were father and daughter, and poor Dotty and Kitty supplied abundantly, for their situation, the oars or the sail. Why, into the bargain, for that matter—this came to Maggie—couldn't they always live, so far as they lived together, in a boat? She felt in her face, with the question, the breath of a possibility that soothed her; they needed only ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James

... Eastward of Cape Chapeaurouge are the Harbours of Great and Little St. Laurence. To sail into Great St. Lawrence, which is the Westermost, there is no Danger but what lies very near the Shore; taking Care with Westerly, and particularly S.W. Winds, not to come too near the Hat Mountain, ...
— Directions for Navigating on Part of the South Coast of Newfoundland, with a Chart Thereof, Including the Islands of St. Peter's and Miquelon • James Cook

... sail shifts from side to side, The boat, untrimm'd, admits the tide, Borne down, adrift, at random tost, The oar breaks short, the rudder's lost. ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... subject—it was an emigrant's letter to his friends at home. It opened with simplicity; some natural and graphic touches disclosed to the reader the scene of virgin forest and great, New-World river—barren of sail and flag—amidst which the epistle was supposed to be indited. The difficulties and dangers that attend a settler's life, were hinted at; and in the few words said on that subject, Mdlle. Henri failed ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell

... little more gradual questioning, Mrs. Glover drew from the boy the information that the Borough water carts passed through the side street once a week, flushing the gutter; that then the envelope ships were made to sail on the water and pass under the covered ways which formed bridges for wayfarers and tunnels for the "navy." Great was the excitement when the ships passed out of sight and were recognized as they arrived safely at the other end. Of course, the expenses in raw material were greatly diminished by ...
— The Art of the Story-Teller • Marie L. Shedlock

... know this best are the officers and men of the British and American navies, who are accustomed to find themselves thrown with the sailors of all nations in all sorts of waters; and wherever they are thus thrown together, the men who sail under the Stars and Stripes and those who fly the Union Jack are friends. I have talked with a good many British sailors (not officers) and it is good to hear the tone of respect in which they speak of the American navy, ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson

... nagging little responsibilities of the day that go with being a citizen and a breadwinner. Not that it invites to suicide. Quite the reverse; it invites to living. To doing something that has a sweep to it; that has a swagger to it. To setting sail for strange ports where ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht

... also, has made the ocean the theater of his power. The ship in which he rides that element, is one of the highest triumphs of his skill. At first, this floating fabric was only a frail bark, slowly urged by the laboring oar. The sail, at length, arose and spread its wings to the wind. Still he had no power to direct his course when the lofty promontory sunk from sight, or the orbs above him were lost in clouds. But the secret of the magnet ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders

... significant Friday a boat-race had been arranged for the amusement of the visiting princes and princesses. It had to be called off on account of a disinclination on the side of the wind to fill its part of the program, or rather, to fill the sails. For it was to have been a "sail." Rowing was not in style then; it was not considered dignified and manly. Besides, the boats were not built to be ...
— Walter Pieterse - A Story of Holland • Multatuli

... like that of a Roman galley, finished with a beak head, to secure the forestay of the mast. This beak is furnished with two large, goggle eyes. The mast is a ponderous spar, fifty feet high, composed of pieces of pine, pegged, glued, and hooped together. A heavy yard is hung amidships. The sail is an oblong of widths of strong, white cotton artistically "PUCKERED," not sewn together, but laced vertically, leaving a decorative lacing six inches wide between each two widths. Instead of reefing in a strong wind, a width ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird

... fleet, and sent one division of his army in it down the river, while the other followed along the banks, fighting its way through successive Indian armies. At length, having reached the ocean, he ordered Nearchus, the commander of the fleet, to sail thence to the Persian Gulf, while he himself struck inland with one division of his army, in order to return home through Gedrosia (Beluchistan). During this march his forces suffered fearfully from want of food and water. Of all the troops which had set ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8 • Various

... died, we'll suppose, and the poor fellow took his name on the spot. He had to leave hurriedly, for a father and a mother and a sister were waiting in a distant home. A ship that had just come was ready to sail, and a month might pass before the landing of another vessel. He went to ...
— The Colossus - A Novel • Opie Read

... brave and as faithful to-day, no doubt, as when he too glittered for his hour before all men's gaze, and the obscurer duty may be the more substantial honor. So when I lift my eyes to look on yonder level ocean-floor, the fitful sunshine now glimmers white on one far-off sail, now on another; and yet I know that all canvas looks snowy while those casual rays are on it, and that the best vessel is that which, sunlit or shaded, best accomplishes its destined course. The officer is almost as powerless as ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various

... allusive to their faith, in place of the heathen deities and other subjects cut by Roman lapidaries; such as a dove, which symbolises life eternal and the Holy Spirit; a palm-branch, peace; an anchor, hope; a ship in full sail, the church; and others of ...
— Rambles of an Archaeologist Among Old Books and in Old Places • Frederick William Fairholt

... her own life was concerned, she seemed to have found, not a haven, but a broad sea upon which she could triumphantly sail. That shame at being merely a woman, with no task, no utility, no independence, had been lifted from her. So, in gratitude, everywhere, at all times, she essayed to help other women to a similar independence. She did not go so far as to say that it was the panacea for all ills, but ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie

... the inmates of the farmhouse rose the morning of the day when Katy was to sail, and as if they could really see the tall masts of the vessel which was to bear her away, the eyes of the whole family were turned often to the eastward with a wistful, anxious gaze, while on their lips ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes

... principal temptations to which a pastor of souls is himself exposed, and the storms by which he is assailed; as vain-glory, for instance, a more dreadful monster than the sirens of the poets, which passengers, by standing on their guard, could sail by and escape. "This rock," says he, "is so troublesome to me even now, when no necessity drives me upon it, that I do not quite escape being hurt by it. But if any one had placed me on so high a pinnacle, it would have been as if, having tied my hands behind my back, he had exposed ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler

... of their own country and of the horrors of the voyage. Cinque gave the impression of great dignity and of extraordinary ability; and Kali, a boy only eleven years of age, also attracted unusual attention. Near the close of 1841, accompanied by five missionaries and teachers, the Africans set sail from New York, to make their way first to Sierra Leone and then to their own homes as well ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley

... that dark horsemen thrice ten thousand led; The flowing beard that graced his cheek in gore Steeped unto crimson turned its russet hue. Arabian Magos, Bactrian Artames, Die in a strange land, never to return; And Tharybis, of five times fifty sail Commander, Lyrna's son, with his fair face By foul mischance of war has been laid low. While, bravest of the brave, Syennesis, Cilicia's admiral, who to the foe Most trouble gave, has met a ...
— Specimens of Greek Tragedy - Aeschylus and Sophocles • Goldwin Smith

... an expedition was preparing to attack the Gulf coast. Andrew Jackson, who had been engaged in Indian wars in the southwest, was put in command. Still, he made no preparation for the defence of New Orleans, until, on December 10, the British expedition of fifty sail was sighted. Jackson now showed his native energy; troops were hurried forward, and militia were brought together. A want of common watchfulness suffered the British to reach a point within seven miles of New Orleans before they met any resistance. Then Jackson made such defence as ...
— Formation of the Union • Albert Bushnell Hart

... the picture had represented it to be, and thought no other than that his heart would burst in twain. Then she got into the ship, and the King led her within. Faithful John, however, remained behind with the pilot, and ordered the ship to be pushed off, saying, "Set all sail, till it fly like a bird in air." Within, however, the King showed her the golden vessels, every one of them, also the wild beasts and strange animals. Many hours went by whilst she was seeing everything, and in her delight she did not observe that the ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers

... construction from one end of the village to the other, while over in Dismal Forest woodsmen were even now cutting down the towering Norfolk pines and hewing out the staunch timbers for the ship that was to sail out one day in quest of the world they had left behind them. But these enterprises provided work for men only. The women, in the main, were without occupation. With the approach of winter the men in active control of the ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon

... Jack will sail the high seas if he can stick it; Peggy'll be the girl in blue who asks to see your ticket; But I will steer my aeroplane over London town And loop the loop till Nurse cries out, "Lor', ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Aug 29, 1917 • Various

... that hangs in the high school hall. Its funny, Mable, but the first real rest Ive had since I got in the army is since Ive got to the front. The only livin thing we see is rats an airyplanes. The archies shoot all day at the planes but it dont seem to bother them much. They just sail along like a limosine with a lot of little dogs tryin to bite off the tires. I guess if they ever hit one the shock would kill the gun crew as quick ...
— "Same old Bill, eh Mable!" • Edward Streeter

... fell, until by the next afternoon there was no longer a river running through the roads. But there were plenty of wet places and enough of streams washing down the rain the gutters to give Freddie a fine canal to sail ...
— The Bobbsey Twins in the Country • Laura Lee Hope

... 1818 that the young lieutenant first set sail for the Polar Sea, as second commander of the Trent, under Captain Buchan. The aim was to cross between Spitzbergen and Greenland; but the companion vessel, the Dorothea, being greatly injured by the ice, the two had to return ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller

... of the shore, where the water was shallow over rocks and weed, was a girdle of lightest, loveliest green. Guernsey, idealized in the morning mist, lay like a dream on the horizon. Here and there a fishing-boat, whose sail flashed orange when the sun touched it, was tossing on the waves; nearer in a boat with furled sail was cautiously making for the narrow passage—the Devil's Drift, as the fishermen called it—between the island and the mainland, a passage only traversed with oars, the oarsmen facing forwards; ...
— A Loose End and Other Stories • S. Elizabeth Hall

... to risk another on speculation: his friends, both Ballantynes and Parkers, volunteered to relieve the printer's anxieties, but the poet declined their bounty, and gloomily indented himself in a ship about to sail from Greenock, and called on his muse to take farewell of Caledonia, in the last song he ever expected to measure in his native land. That fine lyric, beginning "The gloomy night is gathering fast," was the offspring of these moments ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham

... She's a yacht of two hundred tons; and the captain of it is a friend of mine; for he is a man of good sense, and can sail his craft well. I've helped him many a time when he little thought it. I've heard him grumbling at me, when I was doing the very best I could for him. Why, I've carried him eighty miles a day, ...
— At the Back of the North Wind • George MacDonald

... River for Baltimore on a Saturday morning. I remember only the day of the week, for at that time I had no knowledge of the days of the month, nor the months of the year. On setting sail, I walked aft, and gave to Colonel Lloyd's plantation what I hoped would be the last look. I then placed myself in the bows of the sloop, and there spent the remainder of the day in looking ahead, interesting myself in what was ...
— The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass - An American Slave • Frederick Douglass

... very fine one. The Nile begins to rise in July, and at the end of November it is necessary to begin closing the sluice-gates to hold up the water. By the end of February the reservoir is usually filled and Philae partially submerged, so that boats can sail in and out of the colonnades and Pharaoh's Bed. By the beginning of July the water has been distributed, and it then falls to ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, And Assyria In The Light Of Recent Discovery • L.W. King and H.R. Hall

... associate of the bitterest enemies of the Catholic Church in France and in England. Protestant historians affirm that Pope Innocent was one of the financial backers of William of Orange when he set sail from Holland to crush the Catholic faith in Great Britain and Ireland, and drive the Catholic house of Stuart into exile. But it was reserved for the nineteenth century to witness the strange spectacle of men, calling themselves ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (2 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert

... the way, need not be afraid to sail under her own proper colors hereafter, claims that most of the incidents are taken from real life; a very creditable averment, as the work, with slight modifications in each individual case, would prove a faithful portraiture of the early training and subsequent career of nine-tenths of the victims ...
— Autographs for Freedom, Volume 2 (of 2) (1854) • Various

... copher or cyprus, the Lawsonia alba of modern botany; valuable pigments of various kinds, red, yellow, green, and amber; hemp and flax; tar, boxwood,[510] and all the materials requisite for shipbuilding from the heavy timbers needed for the keel to the lightest spar and the flimsiest sail.[511] ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson

... storms, With all her battering Engines bent to rase Som Capital City, or less then if this frame Of Heav'n were falling, and these Elements In mutinie had from her Axle torn The stedfast Earth. At last his Sail-broad Vannes He spreads for flight, and in the surging smoak Uplifted spurns the ground, thence many a League As in a cloudy Chair ascending rides 930 Audacious, but that seat soon failing, meets ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton

... Wall-street since ten o'clock this morning you would be prepared to enjoy this sail," ...
— Richard Vandermarck • Miriam Coles Harris

... opiate, anodyne, milk, opium, "poppy or mandragora"; wet blanket; palliative. V. be -moderate &c. adj.; keep within bounds, keep within compass; sober down, settle down; keep the peace, remit, relent, take in sail. moderate, soften, mitigate, temper, accoy|; attemper[obs3], contemper[obs3]; mollify, lenify[obs3], dulcify[obs3], dull, take off the edge, blunt, obtund[obs3], sheathe, subdue, chasten; sober down, tone down, smooth down; weaken &c. 160; lessen ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget

... wandered down the road, which ran along the cliff, and was bordered by the forest on the other side. The road lay there, gray and solemn, but the forest was enlivened with varied foliage; the trees were tall and well grown. In the little bay lay a boat with unfurled sail; it was laden with planks and awaiting a breeze. Oyvind gazed across the water which had borne him away and home again. There it stretched before him, calm and smooth; some sea-birds flew over it, but made no noise, for it was late. His father came walking up from the mill, paused on the ...
— A Happy Boy • Bjornstjerne Bjornson

... quoted above is a specimen of how they deny the Bible. They almost unanimously deny the unity of the Bible, divine healing, holiness and some of the ordinances. But in the decade to come you will see much more astonishing things. The sectarian world is now just setting sail upon such a sea of revelry, banqueting, money getting, lewdness, and idolatry, as we have not seen before. Her awful sins will reach unto heaven, yea, for some years past have been crying out against her, but each year growing worse. Where is the ...
— The Gospel Day • Charles Ebert Orr

... Thursday night when the murder had been committed. Tremblingly she went to Mrs. Wilson, and learnt what she wanted to know. Jem had walked towards Liverpool with his cousin Will, a sailor who had spent all his money in Manchester, and could not afford railway-fare. Will's ship was to sail on Tuesday, and on Tuesday Jem was to be ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton

... preferred to 'grin and bear;' secondly, that neither officers nor men were supposed to possess such a thing as feeling, when they had once put their foot on board a man-of-war. Then there were the almost interminable sea voyages under sail, during which unspeakable tyrannies could be practised, unheard of beyond the ship, and unpunished. It must be remembered that there were no telegraphs, no newspaper correspondents, no questioning public, so that the evil side of human ...
— Sketches From My Life - By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha • Hobart Pasha

... sea was higher than ever— dangerously so indeed, as the ship had more than once narrowly escaped being pooped—but the sky looked a trifle less wild than before, and the glass was rising. Rogers therefore determined, as a first step, to get up a new foresail, bend, and set it. The sail-room was accordingly opened, and then, in pursuance of their resolution to do as little work as possible themselves, the prisoners in the forecastle were brought up on deck, and ordered, first to rouse out the sail, and ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood

... remained with me to consider what was best to be done. My first determination was to seek a supply of bread-fruit and water at Tofoa, and afterwards to sail for Tongataboo; and there risk a solicitation to Poulaho, the king, to equip my boat, and grant a supply of water and provisions, so as to enable us to reach ...
— A Narrative Of The Mutiny, On Board His Majesty's Ship Bounty; And The Subsequent Voyage Of Part Of The Crew, In The Ship's Boat • William Bligh

... she first went into Paris from Versailles alone for her singing lessons; but that trip, contrasted with the one from her own house to Lord Creedmore's on the Surrey side, was like going out for an hour's sail in a pleasure-boat on a summer's afternoon compared with working a sea-going vessel safely through an intricate and crowded channel ...
— The Primadonna • F. Marion Crawford

... things I could think of, I rushed out of the room to tell your sister, Gertrude, and my own sister, Madeline, to go and take care of the lady. Within less than twenty minutes afterwards, I saw Mrs. Haverill sail into the drawing-room, a thing of beauty, and with the glow of perfect health on her cheek. It was an immense relief to me when I saw her. Up to that time I had a vague idea that I ...
— Shenandoah - Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911 • Bronson Howard

... crossed my mind at best,—for what should I, the Laureate of Al-Kyris, do in other lands? Besides, my departure would indeed be the desolation of the city,—well may Al-Kyris fall when Sah-luma no longer abides within it! Seawards the way lies open,—maybe, in days to come, we twain may take ship and sail hence for a brief sojourn to those distant western shores, whence thou, though thou sayest naught of them, must assuredly have come; I have often dreamed idly of a gray coast washed with dull rain and swathed in sweeping mists, where ever and anon the sun shines through,—a country cheerless, ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli

... are worse lives. The stewardesses could come ashore if they liked; but they sail and ...
— Heartbreak House • George Bernard Shaw



Words linked to "Sail" :   jib, balloon sail, canvass, rack, pilotage, crossjack, jibe, boat, structure, scud, sheet, wear round, point, mainsail, astrogate, journey, run, headsail, tack, travel, topgallant, press of sail, sail through, gybe, topsail, royal, navigate, cruise, piloting, wear ship, foresail, sailing ship, voyage, canvas, change course, move, topgallant sail, lateen sail, piece of cloth, construction, mizzen course, press of canvas



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