tail-pole en · NOUN
Etymology
From tail + pole.
Meanings
-
A wooden pole, usually fifteen to twenty-five long and nine inches in diameter, used to rotate a windmill into the wind.
For a long time the turning was done manually, simply by pushing on a long tail-pole extending downwards, almost to the ground, from the rotatable superstructure.
1960, Thomas Kingston Derry, Trevor Illtyd Williams, A Short History of Technology from the Earliest Times to A.D. 1900, Courier Corporation, page 256:Old post-mills were turned or 'luffed' into the wind by a pole variously called the tail-pole, tail-beam, turning-beam, or tiller-beam.
2011, Stanley Freese, Windmills and Millwrighting, Cambridge University Press, page 40:
Forms
| Spelling | Features | Labels | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| tail-poles | Number=Plur | lexicographic | |
| tail pole | alternative | lexicographic | |
| tailpole | alternative | lexicographic |