sail: [OE] Sail has numerous relatives in the other Germanic languages, among them German and Swedish segel, Dutch zeil, and Danish sejl. These all come from a prehistoric Germanic *seglam, which some have traced back to an Indo-European *seklom. This was presumably formed from the same Indo-European base (*sek- ‘cut’) that produced English dissect, saw, segment, etc, and so sail may signify etymologically a piece of ‘cut’ cloth. => dissect, saw, segment
sail (n.)
Old English segl "sail, veil, curtain," from Proto-Germanic *seglom (cognates: Old Saxon, Swedish segel, Old Norse segl, Old Frisian seil, Dutch zeil, Old High German segal, German Segel), of obscure origin with no known cognates outside Germanic (Irish seol, Welsh hwyl "sail" are Germanic loan-words). In some sources (Klein, OED) referred to PIE root *sek- "to cut," as if meaning "a cut piece of cloth." To take the wind out of (someone's) sails (1888) is to deprive (someone) of the means of progress, especially by sudden and unexpected action, "as by one vessel sailing between the wind and another vessel," ["The Encyclopaedic Dictionary," 1888].
sail (v.)
Old English segilan "travel on water in a ship; equip with a sail," from the same Germanic source as sail (n.); cognate with Old Norse sigla, Middle Dutch seghelen, Dutch zeilen, Middle Low German segelen, German segeln. Meaning "to set out on a sea voyage, leave port" is from c. 1200. Related: Sailed; sailing.
例文
1. They were going to sail around the little island，against the tide.
彼らは島を回って逆潮に向かって航行するつもりだ。
2.He loaded his vessel with another cargo and set sail .
彼は自分の船に別の貨物を積んで出航した。
3.We decided,more or less on a whim,to sail to Morocco.
私たちは多少気まぐれで、モロッコへ航海することにしました。
4.Christopher Columbus set sail for the New World in the Santa Maria.
クリストファー?コロンブスが聖マリアから新大陸に向けて出航した。
5.He went ashore leaving me to start repairing the torn sail .