A square sail attached below the main topsail on a sailing vessel, historically used for additional propulsion.
Compound of 'ben' (possibly from Old English meaning 'inner' or from a directional term) and 'sail.' The nautical term evolved within maritime vocabulary to describe specific sail configurations.
Nautical terminology is wild—'bensail' is one of hundreds of sail types with specific purposes, yet most people today don't know the difference between any of them because motor ships made this knowledge obsolete.
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