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Luff   /ləf/   Listen
verb
Luff  v. i.  (past & past part. luffed; pres. part. luffing)  
1.
(Naut.) To turn the head of a vessel toward the wind; to sail nearer the wind; to turn the tiller so as to make the vessel sail nearer the wind.
2.
(Naut.) To flutter or shake from being aligned close to the direction of the wind; said of a sail.
To luff round, or To luff alee, to make the extreme of this movement, for the purpose of throwing the ship's head into the wind.



noun
Luff  n.  (Naut.)
(a)
The side of a ship toward the wind.
(b)
The act of sailing a ship close to the wind.
(c)
The roundest part of a ship's bow.
(d)
The forward or weather leech of a sail, especially of the jib, spanker, and other fore-and-aft sails.
Luff tackle, a purchase composed of a double and single block and fall, used for various purposes.
Luff upon luff, a luff tackle attached to the fall of another luff tackle.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Luff" Quotes from Famous Books



... and streams swarming with fishes,—the happy hunting-ground of souls. In a late letter from a devoted missionary among the Western Indians (Paul Blohm, a converted Jew) we have noticed a beautiful illustration of this belief. Near the Omaha mission-house, on a high luff, was a solitary Indian grave. "One evening," says the missionary, "having come home with some cattle which I had been seeking, I heard some one wailing; and, looking in the direction from whence I proceeded, I found it to be from the grave near our house. In a moment ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... she said. It had never taken me like that before; but the want of her took and shook all through me, like the wind in the luff of a sail. ...
— Island Nights' Entertainments • Robert Louis Stevenson

... gun's crew to be reduced to six men and the Powder-boy, that being the least number required to perform the evolution, and the gun to be discharged and run in. The Captain hauls taut the train-tackle and chokes the luff, and the Loader and Sponger place the chocking-quoins forward of the front trucks, and proceed to sponge and load the gun in the usual manner. The 2d Sponger and 2d Loader haul taut side-tackles and choke luffs, or, if rolling deep, hitch ...
— Ordnance Instructions for the United States Navy. - 1866. Fourth edition. • Bureau of Ordnance, USN

... the book was to slide, the falls of the tackles were stretched forward, and all hands tallied on, and bowsed away upon them until the book was well entered, when these tackles were nippered, straps and toggles clapped upon the falls, and two more luff tackles hooked on, with dogs, in the same manner; and thus, by luff upon luff, the power was multiplied, until into a pile in which one hide more could not be crowded by hand a hundred or a hundred and fifty were often driven by this complication of purchases. ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana

... sailors' sight her loosened looks Seemed like the jagged storm-rack, and her feet Only the spume that floats on hidden rocks, And, marking how the rising waters beat Against the rolling ship, the pilot cried To the young helmsman at the stern to luff to windward side ...
— Poems • Oscar Wilde


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