Naut. Also 9 trey-, tray-, trice-, tri-. [f. TRY sb. + SAIL.] A small fore-and-aft sail, set with a gaff, and sometimes with a boom, on the fore- or mainmast, or on a small supplementary mast abaft either of these. Also attrib., as trysail gaff, mast, mizen, sheet.
1769. Falconer, Dict. Marine (1789), M m iv. When the sloops of war are rigged as snows, they are furnished with a horse, which answers the purpose of the try-sail-mast, the fore part of the sail being attached by rings to the said horse.
1794. Rigging & Seamanship, I. 83. A trysail, used instead of a mizen,… is extended towards the stern, and … fastened by hoops round a small mast, called a trysail mast, fixed near the aft-side of the main-mast in a block of wood in the quarter deck.
1810. J. H. Moore, Pract. Navigator, 299. Trey-sail. A small sail used by brigs and cutters in blowing weather.
1832. J. Guy, Pocket Cycl., 402. A small mast, reaching up into the maintop, to which a tricesail mizen is attached.
1840. R. H. Dana, Bef. Mast, iv. 16. We … hauled up the mainsail and trysail. Ibid., ix. 22. Trysail gaff [see GAFF sb.1 2].
1850. L. Hunt, Autobiog., II. xvii. 259. We saw her … lying-to under trysails.
