mistrail

English

Etymology 1

Noun

mistrail (plural mistrails)

1. Alternative form of mistral (“type of wind”)
   • 1856, Herbert Byng Hall, Sayah Or, The Courier to the East, page 9:

     Heat, dust, bustle, and confusion, not unattended with great excitement, prevail during the long summer's day. Equal bustle and confusion, with mud, and the "mistrail," or north-west wind, that of winter.

   • 1872, Alphonse Donne, Change of Air and Scene: a Physicians Hints:

     Hyères (Var), a small town well sheltered from the north wind, exposed to the full south, four kilometers from the sea, but insufficiently protected against the mistrail; the thermometer rarely sinks below zero.

   • 1912, Seymour Supercern, Truth Will Out: An Emergence from Chaos and Subterfuge Into Light and Reality, page 49:

     Impressing them as pattering rain upon a Rhino's hide, Or like the Mistrail's hail affects the rocky mountain side.

   • 1965, Rutgers Pharmacy Extension News - Volumes 16-20:

     The mistrail is charged with positive ions.

Etymology 2

mis- +‎ trail

Verb

mistrail (third-person singular simple present mistrails, present participle mistrailing, simple past and past participle mistrailed)

1. (transitive, intransitive) To gallop in such a way that the rear hoof lands in line with the place where the front hoof on the opposite side landed.
   • 1892, Armand Goubaux, Gustave Barrier, Simon J. J. Harger, The Exterior of the Horse, page 475:

     again, the imprint of the posterior foot in question may be made in front or behind that the diagonal anterior foot, and then the horse mistrails himself (se dépiste) .

   • 1899, Cornélis De Witt Willcox, A French-English Military Technical Dictionary, page 127:

     dépister, v.r., (man.) to mistrail (said of the gallop when the imprint of the rear foot is in front of or behind that of the diagonal anterior).