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Keel   /kil/   Listen
noun
Keel  n.  A brewer's cooling vat; a keelfat.


Keel  n.  
1.
(Shipbuilding) A longitudinal timber, or series of timbers scarfed together, extending from stem to stern along the bottom of a vessel. It is the principal timber of the vessel, and, by means of the ribs attached on each side, supports the vessel's frame. In an iron vessel, a combination of plates supplies the place of the keel of a wooden ship.
2.
Fig.: The whole ship.
3.
A barge or lighter, used on the Tyne for carrying coal from Newcastle; also, a barge load of coal, twenty-one tons, four cwt. (Eng.)
4.
(Bot.) The two lowest petals of the corolla of a papilionaceous flower, united and inclosing the stamens and pistil; a carina. See Carina.
5.
(Nat. Hist.) A projecting ridge along the middle of a flat or curved surface.
6.
(Aeronautics) In a dirigible, a construction similar in form and use to a ship's keel; in an aeroplane, a fin or fixed surface employed to increase stability and to hold the machine to its course.
Bilge keel (Naut.), a keel peculiar to ironclad vessels, extending only a portion of the length of the vessel under the bilges.
False keel. See under False.
Keel boat.
(a)
A covered freight boat, with a keel, but no sails, used on Western rivers. (U. S.)
(b)
A low, flat-bottomed freight boat. See Keel, n., 3.
Keel piece, one of the timbers or sections of which a keel is composed.
On even keel, in a level or horizontal position, so that the draught of water at the stern and the bow is the same.
On an even keel a. & adv., steady; balanced; steadily.


verb
Keel  v. t. & v. i.  To cool; to skim or stir. (Obs.) "While greasy Joan doth keel the pot."


Keel  v. i.  (past & past part. keeled; pres. part. keeling)  
1.
To traverse with a keel; to navigate.
2.
To turn up the keel; to show the bottom.
To keel over, to upset; to capsize. (Colloq.)





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Keel" Quotes from Famous Books



... wash!—Calais has retired miles inland, and Dover has burst out to look for it. It has a last dip and slide in its character, has Calais, to be specially commended to the infernal gods. Thrice accursed be that garrison-town, when it dives under the boat's keel, and comes up a league or two to the right, with the packet shivering and spluttering and staring ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... nothing to aid the party on the motor-yacht; and until it got under way again Mr. Hammond was acutely anxious. It rolled so that he expected it to turn keel up at ...
— Ruth Fielding Down East - Or, The Hermit of Beach Plum Point • Alice B. Emerson
... improvement was not sufficient to make it worthy of reliance at this crisis. As has been said, there was money enough, and every ship-yard in the country could be set to work to build ironclad men-of-war: but it takes a long time to build ships, and England's navy was afloat. It was the British keel that America had ...
— The Great War Syndicate • Frank Stockton
... Aeolus and the roar of the storm-fiend. Then it is grand and awful in its majesty; and when I see it so it makes me mad with a triumphant sense of power in overriding it—as it boils beneath the vessel's keel, longing to overwhelm it and me, yet ...
— She and I, Volume 2 - A Love Story. A Life History. • John Conroy Hutcheson
... showing me the glories of Pondicherry himself, an offer which I, anxious to see a Franco-Indian town, readily accepted. There is no harbour there, and owing to the heavy surf, the landing must be made in a surf-boat, a curious keel-less craft built of thin pliant planks sewn together with copper wire, which bobs about on the surface of the water like a cork. At Pondicherry, as in all French Colonial possessions, an attempt has been made to reproduce a little piece of France. There was the dusty ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton


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