Definition of "outhaul" [out•haul]

• Nautical A rope used to extend a sail along a spar or boom. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "a sheet, but by an "outhaul," and kept in position not by a "brace," but by the "sheet," and thereby differs from the square sails."
• "The tack pin (the pin that holds the tack of the sail to the boom) will be attached, as well as the outhaul (the line that attaches to the clew and is used to tension the foot of the sail)."
• "The outhaul block gave way, and the topmast studding-sail boom bent in a manner which I never before supposed a stick could bend."