Drabbler
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 A piece of canvas laced to the bonnet of a sail, to give it a greater depth or more drop. historical
"The next day, merrily pursuing our voyage, we came in sight of the island of Chaneph, where Pantagruel's ship could not arrive, the wind chopping about, and then failing us so that we were becalmed, and could hardly get ahead, tacking about from starboard to larboard, and larboard to starboard, though to our sails we added drabblers."
Example
More examples"The next day, merrily pursuing our voyage, we came in sight of the island of Chaneph, where Pantagruel's ship could not arrive, the wind chopping about, and then failing us so that we were becalmed, and could hardly get ahead, tacking about from starboard to larboard, and larboard to starboard, though to our sails we added drabblers."
Etymology
From drabble + -er.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.