What does "tail-pole" mean?

A wooden pole, usually fifteen to twenty-five long and nine inches in diameter, used to rotate a windmill into the wind.

What is a synonym for "tail-pole"?

Common synonyms include: tail-beam, tiller-beam, turning-beam.

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Noun

1
A wooden pole, usually fifteen to twenty-five long and nine inches in diameter, used to rotate a windmill into the wind.
"Old post-mills were turned or 'luffed' into the wind by a pole variously called the tail-pole, tail-beam, turning-beam, or tiller-beam."

"Old post-mills were turned or 'luffed' into the wind by a pole variously called the tail-pole, tail-beam, turning-beam, or tiller-beam."

From tail + pole.

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