Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
"WINDMILLS" is a plural of: windmill. |
Date "WINDMILLS" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1615. (references) |
| Domain | Definition |
Literature | Windmills Don Quixote de la Mancha, riding through the plains of Montiel, approached thirty or forty windmills, which he declared to Sancho Panza "were giants, two leagues in length or more." Striking his spurs into Rosinante, with his lance in rest, he drove at one of the "monsters dreadful as Typhoeus." The lance lodged in the sail, and the latter, striking both man and beast, lifted them into the air, shivering the lance to pieces. When the valiant knight and his steed fell to the ground they were both much injured, and Don Quixote declared that the enchanter Freston, "who carried off his library with all the books therein," had changed the giants into windmills "out of malice." (Cervantes. Don Quixote, bk. i. ch. viii.) To fight with windmills. To combat chimeras. The French have the same proverb, "Se battre contre des moulins á vent. " The allusion is, of course, to the adventure of Don Quixote referred to above. To have windmills in your head. Fancies, chimeras. Similar to "bees in your bonnet" (q.v.). Sancho Panza says- "Did I not tell your worship they were windmills? and who could have thought otherwise, except such as had windmills in their head?"- Cervantes: Don Quixote, bk. i. ch. viii. Source: Brewer's Dictionary. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
Windmill near Leiden, NetherlandsA windmill is an engine powered by the energy of wind. It often refers to an engine contained in a large building as in traditional post mills, smock mills and tower mills. It also refers to small tower mounted windmills used to pump water on farms and modern wind turbines generating electricity.
History
In Europe
In Europe, windmills have been used since the Middle Ages and are especially popular in Netherlands. Windmills were developed from the 12th century, apparently from technology gained by crusaders who came into contact with windmills in the Middle East. Persian sources indicate windmill use as early as the 7th century B.C. Common applications of windmills are grain milling, water pumping, threshing, and saw mills. Over the ages, windmills have evolved into more sophisticated and efficient wind-powered water pumps and power generators.
In the United States
The development of the American type water-pumping windmill was the major factor in allowing the farming of vast areas of North America, which was otherwise devoid of readily accessible water, and also allowed the extension of rail transport systems, throughout the world, into areas where water could be pumped up from underground to supply the needs of the steam locomotives of those early times. They are still used today for the same purpose in some areas of the world where reticulated electricity is not a realistic option (including the American .The many-bladed wind turbine atop a lattice tower made of wood or steel was, for many years, a fixture of the rural landscape throughout rural America. These mills, made by a variety of manufacturers, featured a large number of blades so that they would turn slowly but with considerable torque. A tower-top gearbox converted the rotary motion into reciprocating strokes carried downward through a pole or rod to the wellhead below.
In areas not prone to freezing weather, a pump jack (or standard) was mounted at the top of the well below. This was the connection between the windmill and the pump rod, which generally went through the drop pipe to the cylinder below. The pump jack provided a means for manual operation of the pump when the wind was not blowing. Some pump jacks provided a sealed connection, allowing water to be forced out under pressure, but many had a simple spout allowing water to flow away in a trough by gravity.
The drop pipe and pump rod continued down deep into the well, terminating at the pump cylinder below the lowest likely water level. A suction tube usually continued a short distance more. This arrangement allowed wells as deep as 400 feet to be constructed, though most were much more shallow.
The number of moving parts led to the whole arrangement to be rather trouble prone, and "well men," as they were called in the early days, had a profitable business in repair and maintenance work.
The wind turbines and related equipment are still manufactured and installed today in remote parts of the western United States where electric power is not readily available. The arrival of electricity in rural areas, brought by the REA in the 1930s through 1950s, made these windmills obsolete in the Midwest and other more built-up areas. The mills and towers remained for a time. Today, most are gone, victims of storms, rust, and progress.
See also:
- List of windmills
- watermill
- windpump
- wind generator
Links
Indexes
- Google: Wind, Windmills, Business: Wind
mixed
- Windmills at Windmill World
- Paul Gipe has worked with wind energy since 1976. His experience with the technology runs the gamut from measuring wind resources to installing residential wind turbines
- DTU: Danish wind turbine manufacturers
- windmission, Windmission: books
- 2/98 Power from the sky Search for: "Power from the sky".
History
- Google: Mills
- windmillworld: history
Theory
Test and construction
- Paul Gipe: Testing the Power Curves of Small Wind Turbines
- Building the brakedrum permanent magnet alternator as originally designed by Hugh Piggott
- Hugh Piggott - Scoraig Wind Electric, Small wind systems for battery charging
- Article: C. John Dakin, ss. 56-58, Elektor Electronics, 1996.''
- "A low-cost wind generator driven battery charger (January) 1 ? (Page) 56" Look under the topic: "Power Supplies & Battery Chargers". Power output: 10 mi/h: 1 Watt; 20 mi/h: 6 Watt; 30 mi/h: 21 Watt. Propeller design: Scrapyard Windmill Realities - Building Windmills with Recycled Parts by Hugh Piggott. Published by The Centre for Alternative Technology. Machynlleth, Powys. Wales SY20 9AZ. Telephone: (01654) 702400.
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Windmill."
Crosswords: WINDMILLS |
| English words defined with "WINDMILLS": wind generation, wind power. (references) |
| Specialty definitions using "WINDMILLS": Live Free Or Die! ♦ ranch rider ♦ Widenostrils, WIND-GENERATING-ELECTRIC-POWER INSTALLER, Windmill Street, WINDMILLS IN THE HEAD. (references) |
| Domain | Usage | |
Movie/TV Titles | Windmills of the Gods (1988) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title |
Books |
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Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Thumbnail | Description & Credit | Thumbnail | Description & Credit |
 | View from the northeastern edge of Provincetown. The windmills were used in the the production of salt. The high sand dunes added to the unique appearance of this Cape Cod town. In: Historical Collections ... of Every Town in Massachusetts. 1841. Credit: America's Coastlines. |  | At the USDA-ARS Conservation and Production Research Laboratory in Bushland, Texas, wind turbines generate power for submersible electric water pumps that are far more efficient than traditional windmills (background). P. Credit: USDA ARS News; photo by Scott Bauer.. |
 | Windmills near Omsk. Credit: Library of Congress. |  | Windmills. Gardner's Mill, vertical, East Hampton, Long Island. Credit: Library of Congress. |
 | Windmills of Long Island, Gardiner's Mill, Easthampton, Long Island. Detail of wing. Credit: Library of Congress. | ||
Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits. | |||
 |  |
| "Modern Windmills" by Tjeerd Doosje Commentary: "In the neighbourhood where I live are those windmills. There a couple of them (around 40 pieces). I'm not really satisfied with this photo (not to much contrast)." | "Windmills at Rotterdam 3" by Ary Post Commentary: "Mills in Kralingen." |
Source: photographs selected by the editor, with permission from the photographers. | |
| Author | Quotation |
Miguel De Cervantes | Pray look better, Sir... those things yonder are no giants, but windmills. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | |
| Title | Author | Quote |
Time Enough for Love | Robert Heinlein | Tilting at windmills hurts you more than the windmills |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
| Subject | Topic | Quote |
Trade | Kenya | Those items include: palm oil and tallow, bicycles, steel billets, wire rods, graphite lead, windmills, power transformers, cables, and active ingredients used for preparation of human and veterinary pharmaceuticals, fungicides and pesticides. (references) |
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits. | ||
| "WINDMILLS" is generally used as a noun (plural) -- approximately 92.93% of the time. "WINDMILLS" is used about 99 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Noun (plural) | 92.93% | 92 | 34,282 |
| Noun (proper) | 5.05% | 5 | 157,705 |
| Lexical Verb (-s form) | 2.02% | 2 | 245,945 |
| Total | 100.00% | 99 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
Expressions using "WINDMILLS": fight windmills ♦ throw one's cap over the windmills ♦ tilt at windmills ♦ trailing windmills. Additional references. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. |
| Language | Translations for "WINDMILLS"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
German | Windmühlen (wind mills). (various references) | |
Hungarian | szélmalomharcot vív (to fight windmills, to tilt at windmills), szélmalomharcot folytat (to fight windmills, to tilt at windmills). (various references) | |
Pig Latin | indmillsway.(various references) | |
Romanian | se lupta cu morile de vânt (fight windmills), a-şi da poalele peste cap (throw one's cap over the windmills). (various references) | |
Turkish | yeldeğirmenlerine karşı savaşmak (fight windmills, tilt at windmills), yel değirmenlerine saldırmak (tilt at windmills), don kişot'luk yapmak (fight windmills, tilt at windmills). (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
Misspellings | |
"WINDMILLS" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: Winmills. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "WINDMILLS" (pronounced wi"ndmi'lz) |
| 5 | -d m i' l z | treadmills. |
| 4 | -m i' l z | sawmills. |
| 3 | -i' l z | anthills, cranesbills, crossbills, daffodils, foothills, handbills, hornbills, landfills, sheathbills, whippoorwills. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "d-i-i-l-l-m-n-s-w" | |
-1 letter: windmill. | |
-2 letters: dislimn. | |
-3 letters: simlin. | |
-4 letters: dills, imids, limns, midis, mills, minds, minis, nills, swill, wilds, wills, winds. | |
-5 letters: dill, dims, dins, ills, imid, iwis, lids, limn, lins, midi, mids, mild, mill, mils, mind, mini, nidi, nill, nils, nims, nisi, sild, sill, slid, slim, swim, wild, will, wind, wins. | |
| Words containing the letters "d-i-i-l-l-m-n-s-w" | |
+5 letters: disembowelling. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
| 1. Definition 2. Crosswords 3. Usage: Modern 4. Usage: Commercial | 5. Images: Slideshow 6. Images: Photo Album 7. Images: Digital Art 8. Quotations: Familiar | 9. Quotations: Fiction 10. Quotations: Non-fiction 11. Usage Frequency 12. Expressions | 13. Translations: Modern 14. Derivations 15. Rhymes 16. Anagrams | 17. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
