mizzen
Americannoun
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a fore-and-aft sail set on a mizzenmast.
adjective
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of or relating to a mizzenmast.
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noting a sail, yard, boom, etc., or any rigging belonging to a mizzen lower mast or to some upper mast of a mizzenmast.
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noting any stay running aft and upward to the head of a mizzen lower mast or some specified upper mast of a mizzenmast.
mizzen topmast stay.
noun
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a sail set on a mizzenmast
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short for mizzenmast
adjective
Etymology
Origin of mizzen
1375–1425; late Middle English meson, mesan, probably < Italian mezzana
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
I now have to keep fencing with Accrux while I have managed to throw your sword flying and getting stuck into the mizzen mast.
From Economist ● Nov. 15, 2012
We have been sailing at around 80 percent with just the No. 4 jib, a trysail and triple-reefed mizzen, but now we have also damaged the mizzen luff track.
From Time Magazine Archive
He lowers his mizzen and rejects her once again.
From Time Magazine Archive
Isabel and the Sea will make even a coal miner imagine himself "running free under number-two jib, staysail, mainsail, and mizzen . . . setting course for the volcanic island of Stromboli."
From Time Magazine Archive
Then came another crash, the main and mizzen masts went over the side, and after one or two violent motions the Gannet remained hard and fast, the heavy seas pouring right over her.
From A Lad of Grit A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea in Restoration Times by Westerman, Percy F. (Percy Francis)
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
