The Collaborative International Dictionary
Haul \Haul\, v. i.
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(Naut.) To change the direction of a ship by hauling the wind. See under Haul, v. t.
I . . . hauled up for it, and found it to be an island.
--Cook. -
To pull apart, as oxen sometimes do when yoked.
To haul around (Naut.), to shift to any point of the compass; -- said of the wind.
To haul off (Naut.), to sail closer to the wind, in order to get farther away from anything; hence, to withdraw; to draw back.
Usage examples of "to haul off".
She was bent low down, peering at me, in no position at all to haul off at me again.
If I was to haul off and go to the mills, it might be hell to pay, coming and going.
Well, the ships battered away for two hours and more, and by the end of that time Fortitude had sixty-two men killed and wounded, three guns dismounted, her mainmast shot through and through, her other masts wounded, and the hot shot had set her on fire, so she had to haul off, damned lucky not to have run aground.
That bag, that long black bag not so different in shape and size from the kind people used to haul off things they no longer wanted, that bag reminded her much too forcibly that it wasn't a person in the pond, it wasn't a woman, it was only a body that wouldn't suffer from the indignity of being taken away in a big piece of plastic.
You saw the way the Androssi tried to haul off a whole ship, without any concern for the dead.
The awkwardness of trying to run like this was too much and she stopped to haul off the other boot and her stockings, dumping them on a table.
I felt a sudden strong urge to haul off and kick him in his blind newsboy's ass.
But I think it would be safer and better to haul off for three hours or so.
For a moment Johnson thought LeMay was going to haul off and belt him.
Lennar doesn't offer random excavations of its subdivisions, although the company promises to haul off any unsightly debris that might surface unexpectedly.