Parasails

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. A type of recreational activity where a person is towed behind a boat while attached to a parachute-like canopy
2. A sport involving being lifted into the air attached to a parachute and harness
3. An exhilarating experience combining elements of sailing and parachuting through wind propulsion

Etymology: The word "parasails" is the third-person singular present form of "parasail", a verb meaning to glide behind a boat while held aloft by a parachute-like canopy. Its first half is the Greek preposition "para", meaning "beside" or "alongside", which English has borrowed for countless compounds such as "parallel" and "parasite". Here it means "alongside" in a literal sense: the rider is pulled alongside the boat rather than travelling in front of it. The second half is the ordinary English noun "sail". That word descends from Old English "seġl", which in turn goes back to a Proto-Germanic root shared across the Germanic languages. Attaching "sail" to "para" produced a compound that describes exactly what the sport does: the canopy works like a sail, but it is lifted by the wind and trailed behind a moving vessel, not pushed by the wind on the vessel itself.

Synonyms: paraglides, glides, soars, floats, hang-glides