furl

UK/fɜːl/US/fɝl/

verbC2Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #13,683 of 15,258neutral

Other forms: furling, furled

To furl is to roll a sail up and tie it. Furl the sails, furled tight, a furled umbrella.

It is the opposite of unfurl, and the tying is part of it — a sail dropped loose is not furled. Flags, awnings and umbrellas take the word too. Modern yachts have roller furling, which winds the sail round the stay instead of gathering it by hand.

Definitions of furl

1verbfurlTo roll a sail up and tie it.C2
“As the storm approached, the crew hurried to furl the sails.”

furl is a rolling up.

Where it comes from

Probably from Old French ferlier, to bind tight, from ferm, firm, plus lier, to tie.

Old French
ferlier
English, today
furl

Perhaps from Old French ferlier, modern French ferler.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Sea & Sailing

Practise this word

furl in the wild

Brails, in a sailing ship, are small lines used to haul in or up the edges (leeches) or corners of sails, before furling.
Brail
To haul and furl the sails, the command used in the early 18th century was hale up the brails or brail up the sails.
Brail
The headsail of a sloop (where roller furling is not fitted) is often lashed to a guardrail or along a bowsprit.
Furl (sailing)
Many jibs and headsails are fitted with roller reefing or roller furling.
Furl (sailing)
Roller furling is a method of furling (i.e. reefing) a yacht's staysail by rolling the sail around a stay.
Roller furling

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Related words

furlong

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