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Glite Dictionary
🔥 To put out 💦 To soak 🪣 To dip in liquid ⛵ To lower quickly
to douse

to douse

1 8.4
To lower a sail or flag quickly
  • verb
  • /daʊs/
  • Specialized
translation icon : arriar
  • The captain ordered the crew to douse the sails as the storm approached.

Examples

  • Mac doused his navigation lights and turned Ariadne a hundred and eighty degrees onto the reciprocal course at eighteen knots.

    Fiction book (1995)

  • Break off pursuit, run her light and douse canvas!

    Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006)

  • At midnight, a cutter came up close aboard, an officer hailed us in English, and told us to douse our navigation lights.

    Fiction book (1995)

  • We doused the sails and motored in through the southern passage between the mainland and the first islet.

    Blog text (4)

  • I am serious when I say that I will probably suit up in a Tyvek suit and douse the bottoms of the legs and my shoes with something like BedLam, Bed Bug Terminator, or Raid—something.

    Blog text (3)

  • When we heard the signal, we quickly doused the flag and prepared for the next maneuver.

  • Before entering the harbor, the sailor instructed everyone to douse the navigation lights.

Synonyms

to sling off
vsto douse
  • Informal
8.6

To take off or get rid of something quickly and without care

is done deliberately and with control rather than carelessly

How Fast

to douse
  • Specialized
1 8.4
to drop
∞ 1.0
to take down
46 3.0

Surface Forms

douse infinitive
doused past
doused past participle
dousing present participle
douses third person singular

Etymology

Douse also had an old sense of 'to lower or take down', so on a ship to douse a sail is to drop or take it down quickly when the wind or weather changes.