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A mill operated by the power of the wind, usually by the action of the wind upon oblique vanes or sails which radiate from a horizontal shaft. Chaucer.

ms against France, till we have utterly disjoined her from the Spanish monarchy. Addison. Windmill Street consisted of disjoined houses. Pennant.

A small vane or sail, used to keep the large sails of a smock windmill always in the direction of the wind. Clean provender, which hath been winnowed with the shovel and with the fan. Is. xxx. 24.

The fan wheel that rotates the cap of a windmill as the wind veers. Internat. Cyc.

Tilt hammer. -- Lift lock, a canal lock. -- Lift pump, a lifting pump. -- Lift tenter (Windmills), a governor for regulating the speed by adjusting the sails, or for adjusting the action of grinding machinery according to the speed. -- Lift wall (Canal Lock), the cross wall at the head of the lock.

Resembling the sails of a windmill.

-- Post hole, a hole in the ground to set the foot of a post in. -- Post mill, a form of windmill so constructed that the whole fabric rests on a vertical axis firmly fastened to the ground, and capable of being turned as the direction of the wind varies. -- Post and stall (Coal Mining), a mode of working in which pi…

nding grain, the upper stone of which was turned by hand; -- used before the invention of windmills and watermills. Shak. They made him at the querne grind. Chaucer.

the extended surface of the arm of a windmill.

When or that. [Obs.] Do you remember since we lay all night in the windmill in St. George's field Shak.

taining to a smock; resembling a smock; hence, of or pertaining to a woman. Smock mill, a windmill of which only the cap turns round to meet the wind, in distinction from a post mill, whose whole building turns on a post. -- Smock race, a race run by women for the prize of a smock. [Prov. Eng.]

es the game. The greatest poetess of our day has wasted her time and strength in tackling windmills under conditions the most fitted to insure her defeat. Dublin Univ. Mag.

Any flat, extended surface attached to an axis and moved by the wind; as, the vane of a windmill; hence, a similar fixture of any form moved in or by water, air, or other fluid; as, the vane of a screw propeller, a fan blower, an anemometer, etc.

A mill whose machinery is moved by water; -- distinguished from a windmill, and a steam mill.

h.), a canopy or cornice over a door or a window, to throw off the rain. -- Weather of a windmill sail, the obliquity of the sail, or the angle which it makes with its plane of revolution. -- Weather report, a daily report of meteorological observations, and of probable changes in the weather; esp., one published by…

One of the arms or frames of a windmill, on which the sails are spread.

ion by the action of the air, as a fan or vane for winnowing grain, the vane or sail of a windmill, etc.