windlass

English

Alternative forms

• windless (obsolete)

Etymology

From Middle English wyndlas, wyndelas, wyndlasse, wyndelasse, probably an alteration (due to Middle English windel) of Middle English windas, wyndas, wyndace, from Anglo-Norman windase, windeis and Old Northern French windas (compare Old French guindas, Medieval Latin windasius, windasa), from Old Norse vindáss (“windlass”, literally “winding-pole”), from vinda (“to wind”) + áss (“pole”). Compare Icelandic vindilass.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈwɪnd.ləs/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

Homophone: windless

Noun

windlass (plural windlasses)

1. Any of various forms of winch, in which a rope or cable is wound around a cylinder, used for lifting heavy weights
2. A winding and circuitous way; a roundabout course.
   • c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene i], line 65:

     With windlasses and with assays of bias, / By indirections find directions out.

3. An apparatus resembling a winch or windlass, for bending the bow of an arblast, or crossbow.

Derived terms

• Spanish windlass

 

Translations

winch

• Belarusian: бра́шпіль m (brášpilʹ), лябёдка f (ljabjódka)
• Bulgarian: макара (bg) f (makara), хаспел (bg) m (haspel)
• Catalan: argue (ca) m
• Czech: rumpál (cs) m
• Finnish: vintturi (fi)
• Galician: guindastre (gl) m
• Hebrew: כַּנֶּנֶת (he) f (kanenet)
• Italian: argano (it) m, verricello (it) m, bozzello m, salpareti m
• Latin: sucula f, tormentum n
• Macedonian: ди́галка f (dígalka)
• Maori: huritaura
• Norman: vitheveau m
• Ottoman Turkish: بوجرغات (bocurgat), چقرق (çıkrık), ارغات (ırgat)
• Polish: kołowrót (pl) m
• Russian: бра́шпиль (ru) m (brášpilʹ), лебёдка (ru) f (lebjódka)
• Serbo-Croatian: sidreno vitlo n
• Spanish: malacate (es)
• Tagalog: biling-bilingan
• Turkish: bocurgat (tr)
• Ukrainian: брашпиль (uk) m (brašpylʹ), лебідка (uk) f (lebidka)

Verb

windlass (third-person singular simple present windlasses, present participle windlassing, simple past and past participle windlassed)

1. To raise with, or as if with, a windlass; to use a windlass.
   • 1882, Constance Gordon-Cumming, “Ningpo and the Buddhist Temples”, in The Century Magazine:

     A favoring breeze enabled us to sail all the way down the lake, and (having been windlassed across the haul-over) even down the canals.

2. To take a roundabout course; to work warily or by indirect means.
   • a. 1660, Henry Hammond, a sermon:

     He could not expect to allure him forward, and therefore drives him as far back as he can; that so he may be the more sure of him at the rebound; as a skilful woodsman, that by windlassing presently gets a shoot, which, without taking a compass and thereby a commodious stand, he could never have obtained.