shoulder-of-mutton sail

noun

A triangular sail attached to the top of a boat's mast. It may also attach to a boom.

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Meanings

nounshoulder-of-mutton sail (plural shoulder-of-mutton sails)

plural shoulder-of-mutton sails

  1. nauticalA triangular sail attached to the top of a boat's mast. It may also attach to a boom.

    Now I wished for my boy Xury, and the long-boat with shoulder-of-mutton sail, with which I sailed above a thousand miles on the coast of Africa

    1719 May 6 (Gregorian calendar), [Daniel Defoe], The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, […], London: […] W[illiam] Taylor […], →OCLC
    1 more example

    a long galley with three masts, each dressed with a single cross-spar for carrying a leg-of-mutton sail, and on the shore a couple of ship's boats with a company of men waiting to transport our goods and us aboard.

    1895, Frank Barrett, A Set of Rogues

Origin

From its shape.

Full word history & related roots →
Cite this entry
APA

shoulder-of-mutton sail. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/shoulder-of-mutton%20sail

MLA

“shoulder-of-mutton sail.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/shoulder-of-mutton%20sail. Accessed November 5, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “shoulder-of-mutton sail,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/shoulder-of-mutton%20sail.

Source: shoulder-of-mutton sail on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.