name, noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   A sail or either of the two sails rigged just above the course sail and supported by the topmast on a square-rigged sailing ship.
2. 2
   a sail (or either of a pair of sails) immediately above the lowermost sail of a mast and supported by a topmast wordnet
3. 3
   In a fore-and-aft-rigged sailing boat, the sail that is set above the gaff at the top part of the mast.

Proper Noun

1. 1
   A neighbourhood of Conception Bay South, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada.

Synonyms

All synonyms

jibsail

Etymology

Etymology 1

From Middle English topsail, topsayl, topseyle, topsaill, equivalent to top + sail.

Etymology 2

Most likely named after Topsail Head.

Related phrases

Gaff Topsailclub topsailgaff-topsailcourse sailfore and aft

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