drogue
/dɹəʊɡ/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: 1.99 in modern English
8
Scrabble Score
6
Letters
1
Syllables
6
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A floating object attached to the end of a harpoon line to slow a whale down and prevent it from diving.
noun
A conical parachute used as a brake for some kinds of aircraft, or as a means of extracting and deploying a larger parachute, or to slow a rapidly-moving vehicle to a speed where it can safely deploy a larger parachute.
noun
A conical basket or device used variously as a target for gunnery practice, and as a docking point for aerial refuelling.
noun
A wind cone.
Example Sentences
- "through the sash window I could see the black truck pulling up the drive towards the main road, the silver caravan coming behind like a drogue that was preventing the gypsies from submerging, escaping into the very centre of the earth."
- "At 11,000 feet, three pilot chutes deploy as the drogue chutes are cut away by pyrotechnics."
- "The old whalesman was not long aboard before getting confirmed in his conjecture that the ship was the same whose boats had harpooned and “drogued” the cachalot', the carcass of which had been encountered by the Catamaran."
- "Although the Inuit were quick to adapt to the use of the whaleboat and new whaling methods, they retained certain elements of their aboriginal technology, and on May 1st all hands aboard the Cemma" spent the day 'making drogues (niutang) for the natives' boats to drogue fish with' ( Ross 1985b : 165 )."
- "Even before the formal, specialized pursuit of large whales solidified into a seasonal enterprise (which had certainly occurred in the Bay of Biscay by the eleventh century, and quite possibly earlier in Northeastern Asia, or among Pacific or Caribbean island peoples), the spearing or droguing of animals encountered in the course of other activities—like sealing or fishing—would have been relatively common."
- "Here this type was drogued at 30 m by a^([sic]) 11.85 m parachute while the other types were not drogued."
Etymology
Regional Pronunciation
- British English: /dɹəʊɡ/