windlass

noun

1. Any of various forms of winch, in which a rope or cable is wound around a cylinder, used for lifting heavy weights
2. A winding and circuitous way; a roundabout course.

   “With windlasses and with assays of bias, / By indirections find directions out.”

3. An apparatus resembling a winch or windlass, for bending the bow of an arblast, or crossbow.

verb

1. To raise with, or as if with, a windlass; to use a windlass.

   “A favoring breeze enabled us to sail all the way down the lake, and (having been windlassed across the haul-over) even down the canals.”

2. To take a roundabout course; to work warily or by indirect means.

   “He could not expect to allure him forward, and therefore drives him as far back as he can; that so he may be the more sure of him at the rebound; as a skilful woodsman, that by windlassing presently gets a shoot, which, without taking a compass and thereby a commodious stand, he could never have obtained.”