sail

pronunciation

How to pronounce sail in British English: UK [seɪl] word uk audio image

How to pronounce sail in American English: US [seɪl] word us audio image

Noun:

a large piece of fabric (as canvas) by means of which wind is used to propel a sailing vessel
an ocean trip taken for pleasure
Verb:

traverse or travel by ship on (a body of water)
move with sweeping, effortless, gliding motions
travel in a boat propelled by wind
travel by boat on a boat propelled by wind or by other means

Word Origin

sail: sail: [OE] Sail has numerous relatives in the other Germanic languages, among them German and Swedish segel, Dutch zeil, and Danish sejl. These all come from a prehistoric Germanic *seglam, which some have traced back to an Indo-European *seklom. This was presumably formed from the same Indo-European base (*sek- ‘cut’) that produced English dissect, saw, segment, etc, and so sail may signify etymologically a piece of ‘cut’ cloth.=> dissect, saw, segment

sail (n.): Old English segl "sail, veil, curtain," from Proto-Germanic *seglom (cognates: Old Saxon, Swedish segel, Old Norse segl, Old Frisian seil, Dutch zeil, Old High German segal, German Segel), of obscure origin with no known cognates outside Germanic (Irish seol, Welsh hwyl "sail" are Germanic loan-words). In some sources (Klein, OED) referred to PIE root *sek- "to cut," as if meaning "a cut piece of cloth." To take the wind out of (someone's) sails (1888) is to deprive (someone) of the means of progress, especially by sudden and unexpected action, "as by one vessel sailing between the wind and another vessel," ["The Encyclopaedic Dictionary," 1888].

sail (v.): Old English segilan "travel on water in a ship; equip with a sail," from the same Germanic source as sail (n.); cognate with Old Norse sigla, Middle Dutch seghelen, Dutch zeilen, Middle Low German segelen, German segeln. Meaning "to set out on a sea voyage, leave port" is from c. 1200. Related: Sailed; sailing.

vi.