Windlass meaning

wĭnd'ləs
Any of numerous hauling or lifting machines consisting essentially of a horizontal cylinder turned by a crank or a motor so that a line attached to the load is wound around the cylinder.
noun
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A winch, esp. a simple one for lifting an anchor, a bucket in a well, etc.
noun
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To hoist, lower, or haul with a windlass.
verb
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Any of various forms of winch, in which a rope or cable is wound around a cylinder, used for lifting heavy weights.
noun
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To raise with a windlass.
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A winding and circuitous way; a roundabout course.
noun
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An apparatus resembling a winch or windlass, for bending the bow of an arblast, or crossbow.

noun
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To raise with, or as if with, a windlass; to use a windlass.

verb
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To take a roundabout course; to work warily or by indirect means.

verb
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Origin of windlass

  • Middle English wyndlas alteration of windas from Old Norse vindāss vinda to wind āss pole
    From American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition
  • Middle English windels or windas, Old Norse vindass, from vinda (“to wind") + ass (“pole"). Confer Icelandic vindilass.
    From Wiktionary

Windlass Sentence Examples

  • The grandest place of all is the Colossal Dome, which used to be entered only from the apex by windlass and a rope reaching 135 ft.

  • square sunk into the blue ground; the diamantiferous rock was hoisted by bucket and windlass, and roadways were left across the pit to provide access to the claims. But the roadways soon fell in, and ultimately haulage from the claims could only be provided by means of a vast system of wire ropes extending from a triple staging of windlasses erected round the entire edge of the mine, which had by this time become a huge open pit; the ropes from the upper windlasses extended to the centre, and those from the lower tier to the sides of the pit; covering the whole mass like a gigantic cobweb.

  • The creators work to understand things like the stance phase, the swing phase and the windlass mechanism, for example.

  • The monasteries stand on the summit of these pinnacles; they are accessible only by aid of rope and net worked by a windlass from the top, or by a series of almost perpendicular ladders climbing the cliff.

  • corfe earliest improvement was the windlass, a hand-wound rope to haul up baskets, called corves, of coal.

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Also Mentioned In

Words near windlass in the Dictionary