Sailyards

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A type of structure used on sailing vessels to hold the sails in place during navigation
2. Components located on a ship that support and extend the sails for effective sailing
3. Framework elements on a boat that allow for the raising and dropping of sails while under wind power

Etymology: "Sailyards" is the plural of "sailyard," the spar that a square sail hangs from and is hoisted and lowered along. The word's older form is Old English "seġlġyrd," built from "seġl" (sail) and "gyrd" (rod, staff, stick), so its original sense was literally "sail-rod" or "sail-staff." The second element is the same word as modern "yard" in its old sense of a long pole or stick, which is why the nautical term still reads so plainly as a description of what it is. The compound is an old Germanic formation, and German has a close match in "Segelgerte," which points to a shared ancestor in Proto-West Germanic. In English the word passed through Middle English forms such as "saylyerde" and "sailyerd" before settling into its modern spelling, with the "yard" element gradually losing the sense of a stick and taking on the sense of a spar.