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Relating to the time before Moses; as, premosaic history.

ose; resembling prose; in the form of prose; unpoetical; writing or using prose; as, a prosaic composition. Cudworth.

The quality or state of being prosaic; a prosaic manner or style. [R.] Poe.

That which is in the form of prose writing; a prosaic manner. Coleridge.

A writer of prose; an unpoetical writer. "An estimable prosaist." I. Taylor.

To sail again; also, to sail back, as to a former port.

See Ringtail,2.

The sail set next above the royal. See Illust. under Sail.

A sail extended by a sprit.

Any sail extended on a stay.

A light sail set at the side of a principal or square sail of a vessel in free winds, to increase her speed. Its head is bent to a small spar which is called the studding-sail boom. See Illust. of Sail. Toten.

A contraction of Studding sail. With every rag set, stunsails, sky scrapers and all. Lowell.

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. Topsail schooner. (Naut.) See Schooner, and Illustration in…

A fore-and-aft sail, bent to a gaff, and hoisted on a lower mast or on a small mast, called the trysail mast, close abaft a lower mast; -- used chiefly as a storm sail. Called also spencer. Totten.

ccording to Moses; unlike Moses or his works. By this reckoning Moses should be most un Mosaic. Milton.

To sail alongshore. [Obs.]

Inadequately equipped with sails. [Obs.]

To deprive of saintship; to deny sanctity to. [R.] South.

Unbecoming to a saint. Gauden.

hich such good wishes are expressed in drinking; a drinking bout; a carouse. "In merry wassail he . . . peals his loud song." Sir W. Scott. The king doth wake to-night and takes his rouse, Keeps wassail. Shak. The victors abandoned themselves to feasting and wassail. Prescott.