Sayles

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A family name borne by people such as John Sayles, the American filmmaker and novelist ; an old spelling of the verb meaning to travel over water under a ship's canvas
2. The surname of American director and writer John Sayles ; a dated variant spelling of the verb to sail, meaning to move across water by ship
3. Belonging to a family name associated with the filmmaker John Sayles ; an obsolete form of the verb describing a vessel travelling over the sea

Etymology: Sayles is most likely a place-name surname, though the exact source is uncertain. The base may be "sayle" or "sale," spellings of the Old English "salh," meaning willow, so an early bearer may have lived by a stand of willows. The final "-s" probably reflects a plural or locative form, as with many English surnames built on landscape features. Because "Sale" and "Sayle" are also recorded as surnames, the name seems to have spread through several spellings and families rather than tracing back to one ancestor. The filmmaker John Sayles bears it, but that tells us nothing about where it came from.