(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.
Topsail
Definition:
(n.) In a square-rigged vessel, the sail next above the lowermost sail on a mast. This sail is the one most frequently reefed or furled in working the ship. In a fore-and-aft rigged vessel, the sail set upon and above the gaff. See Cutter, Schooner, Sail, and Ship.