What's the difference between gaff and sail?

Gaff


Definition:

  • (n.) A barbed spear or a hook with a handle, used by fishermen in securing heavy fish.
  • (n.) The spar upon which the upper edge of a fore-and-aft sail is extended.
  • (n.) Same as Gaffle, 1.
  • (v. t.) To strike with a gaff or barbed spear; to secure by means of a gaff; as, to gaff a salmon.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Dedicate it to the off-the-cuff remark – the gaffe, even – which averts a war.
  • (2) Every time he opened his mouth he created another gaffe," he said.
  • (3) This is, admittedly, a difficult area for David Cameron, who, when questioned by David Letterman on US TV in 2012, was unable to say that Magna Carta simply meant great charter, but perhaps we should overlook this fairly amazing gaffe (for an Oxford-educated prime minister) and encourage him to inaugurate a national movement of political renewal with the charter as the context and inspiration.
  • (4) Mitt Romney's historic gaffe caught on video – published, with great timing, by the left-leaning Mother Jones magazine – in which he said that his campaign was writing off 47% of American voters since they "depended on government" handouts, was committed in an equally significant manner, as he delivered the remarks to a closed group of potential major donors in Florida.
  • (5) There is strikingly little support for the Republican contender whose gaffe-prone visit to Europe in July won him few friends and who regularly turns European welfarism and "entitlement societies" into points of mockery in his campaign speeches.
  • (6) Following controversy over the candidate's comments on the preparedness of London to host the Olympic Games, his aides will be anxious to avoid further gaffes.
  • (7) Democrats are planning to highlight what they see as the Republican party’s unpalatable views on immigration over the weekend, sending “trackers” to monitor the event in search of further gaffes from potential candidates.
  • (8) The comedy, in which she stars as gaffe-prone vice-president Selina Meyer, has been seen as a personal triumph for Louis-Dreyfus, as well as a stateside vindication for the comic method of its creator, Armando Iannucci .
  • (9) Roe worried about “all these gaffes” that Biden made as well as whether the 72-year-old had the necessary energy to serve in the Oval Office.
  • (10) Photograph: Barcroft Media Newsnight's new editor, former Guardian deputy editor Ian Katz, also has form with the comic sidestep after his Twitter "snoring, boring" gaffe about Rachel Reeves.
  • (11) Campaigning before the June election Demirtaş had been full of mischief, needling Erdoğan, making fun of the AKP’s gaffes.
  • (12) Gaffes are a feature of politicians and the electoral process, not a bug.
  • (13) In one high-profile gaffe, the expertise of one member of Macierewicz’s commission was revealed to have been based upon experience of constructing model aircraft, sitting in a fighter jet’s cockpit during an air show, and observing plane wings while looking out of a passenger window.
  • (14) Johnson is the master-builder of that image, deflecting every lie, every gaffe, dishonesty and U-turn with some self-deprecating metaphor: calling his feigned indecision “veering all over the place like a shopping trolley” was worth a world of worthy platitudes.
  • (15) You know, you had someone as despicable as Hitler who didn’t even sink to using chemical weapons.” Sean Spicer apologizes for 'even Hitler didn't use chemical weapons' gaffe Read more Spicer’s assertion during the Jewish holiday of Passover provoked instant outrage on social media and from some Holocaust memorial groups, who accused him of minimising Hitler’s crimes.
  • (16) This week the rapper said his gaffe at the MTV Video Music awards in 2009 was "bigger ... than the Bush moment".
  • (17) Clinton, while trotting out her plan on college affordability , has been robust in her attacks on Republican candidates of late – speaking out against gaffes on women’s reproductive rights from Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio.
  • (18) The editor's hope is that there will be "a story", perhaps a new policy initiative but, better still, a "gaffe".
  • (19) If it isn’t frontbench gaffes, it’s the perceived lack of commitment to the armed forces or armed police officers distracting from government blunders.
  • (20) Following a gaffe-strewn visit to Britain , where he queried the Olympic host's fitness to stage the Games, and after stirring controversy in Israel by calling Jerusalem the Israeli capital and seeming to back unilateral Israeli strikes against Iran , the Republican White House contender arrived on Monday in Poland, where he is to deliver a setpiece speech on democracy and freedom.

Sail


Definition:

  • (n.) An extent of canvas or other fabric by means of which the wind is made serviceable as a power for propelling vessels through the water.
  • (n.) Anything resembling a sail, or regarded as a sail.
  • (n.) A wing; a van.
  • (n.) The extended surface of the arm of a windmill.
  • (n.) A sailing vessel; a vessel of any kind; a craft.
  • (n.) A passage by a sailing vessel; a journey or excursion upon the water.
  • (n.) To be impelled or driven forward by the action of wind upon sails, as a ship on water; to be impelled on a body of water by the action of steam or other power.
  • (n.) To move through or on the water; to swim, as a fish or a water fowl.
  • (n.) To be conveyed in a vessel on water; to pass by water; as, they sailed from London to Canton.
  • (n.) To set sail; to begin a voyage.
  • (n.) To move smoothly through the air; to glide through the air without apparent exertion, as a bird.
  • (v. t.) To pass or move upon, as in a ship, by means of sails; hence, to move or journey upon (the water) by means of steam or other force.
  • (v. t.) To fly through; to glide or move smoothly through.
  • (v. t.) To direct or manage the motion of, as a vessel; as, to sail one's own ship.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) If we’re waiting around for the Democratic version to sail through here, or the Republican version to sail through here, all those victims who are waiting for us to do something will wait for days, months, years, forever and we won’t get anything done.” Senator Bill Nelson, whose home state of Florida is still reeling from the Orlando shooting, said he felt morally obligated to return to his constituents with results.
  • (2) Porec , a port in Istria, is a good place to learn to sail; try the marina (marina-porec@pu.tel.hr) or istra-yachting.com .
  • (3) The coke sailed up my nasal passage, leaving behind the delicious smell of a hot leather car seat on the way back from the beach.
  • (4) The passengers were then flown to an Australian icebreaker, the Aurora Australis, which had cracked through ice floes and was now sailing towards Australia's Casey research base.
  • (5) He set sail on his $15m yacht Sorcerer II on an unending voyage with the mission, along the way, "to put everything that Darwin missed into context" and map the whole world's genetic components.
  • (6) When I clambered onto the fishing boat after the last men left, it occurred to me that an armed smuggler might be hiding below deck, waiting to sail the boat back to Libya.
  • (7) Ships should be able to sail directly over the north pole by the middle of this century, considerably reducing the costs of trade between Europe and China but posing new economic, strategic and environmental challenges for governments, according to scientists.
  • (8) "In ocean races in sailing a handicap prize is awarded as well as a line honours prize to recognise sailing skill rather than simply the newest and most expensive boat," writes Benjamin Penny.
  • (9) For most people this ship has sailed and they want to move on.
  • (10) The new royal research ship will be sailing into the world’s iciest waters to address global challenges that affect the lives of hundreds of millions of people, including global warming, the melting of polar ice and rising sea levels,” he said.
  • (11) The 700-strong trade mission to Emperor Qianlong sailed in a man-of-war equipped with 66 guns, compromising diplomats, businessmen and soldiers, but it ended in an impasse with the emperor refusing to meet them, saying: "We the celestial empire have never valued ingenious articles, nor do we have the slightest need of your country's manufactures."
  • (12) Fabregas hammers it down the middle, the ball sailing slightly to the left before bulging the net.
  • (13) The SAILS offers a criterion-based means of quantifying patient functional status for both clinical and research applications.
  • (14) The broadcast featured panoramic shots of the hundreds of boats, tugs, cruisers and canoes sailing past the Houses of Parliament during the pageant staged as part of the national celebrations in June.
  • (15) "I don't know why," he says, but it's something that didn't even happen at his lowest ebb: amid the bleakness of the early 70s, he somehow kept sporadically producing incredible songs: Til I Die, This Whole World, Sail On Sailor… There's always touring, however.
  • (16) Back in Liverpool, however: "My great-grandfather on my mother's side was a qualified ship's captain, but was never allowed to sail out of Liverpool as such, because the crews would not take orders from a black captain.
  • (17) Ahmad boarded at roughly the same time, calling to tell his family he would be sailing for Italy that night.
  • (18) Tourists Guy and Jo from Margaret River, in Western Australia, were preparing to sail in the lagoon in a glass-bottom boat when a police officer stopped them.
  • (19) A similar surge was expected this “sailing season”, Vivian Tan, a spokeswoman for the UNHCR, told Guardian Australia.
  • (20) Some of those operations may “sail close to the wind” in terms of breaking existing laws.

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