Dismasts

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. Referring to the act of removing or breaking off a ship's mast or masts
2. Indicating the state of having lost one or more masts, often due to damage or storm conditions
3. Describing a vessel that has had its vertical structure for sails significantly compromised or entirely detached

Etymology: "Dismasts" is the third-person singular present form of "dismast," a verb meaning to strip a ship of its masts. The verb is built from the prefix "dis-," which expresses removal or reversal, joined to "mast," the upright spar that carries a ship's sails. So to dismast a vessel is literally to take its masts away, and the word describes a ship deprived of the very structures that drive it. The prefix has a long pedigree. It descends from a Latin "dis-," which English borrowed directly and also received through Old French "des-," and "dis-" has been a productive English element since the Middle English period. The noun "mast" comes from Old English, so the verb is a native English formation combining an older Latin-derived prefix with a much older Germanic-rooted noun.

Synonyms: demasts, remove masts

Antonyms: masts, erects masts