Downhaul

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    Any rope used to haul down a sail or spar.

    "The only sail that is wholly ours is the spanker. They control absolutely--sheets, halyards, clewlines, buntlines, braces, and down-hauls--every sail on the fore and main. We control the braces on the mizzen, although they control the canvas on the mizzen."

Synonyms

All synonyms
riggingrope

Example

More examples

"The only sail that is wholly ours is the spanker. They control absolutely--sheets, halyards, clewlines, buntlines, braces, and down-hauls--every sail on the fore and main. We control the braces on the mizzen, although they control the canvas on the mizzen."

Etymology

From down- + haul.

Related phrases

galley downhaul

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.