Perhaps fromOld Frenchferlier, modernFrenchferler.
furl (third-person singular simple presentfurls,present participlefurling,simple past and past participlefurled)
- (transitive) Tolower, roll up andsecure (something, such as asail orflag)
1851 November 14,Herman Melville, chapter 14, inMoby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.:Harper & Brothers; London:Richard Bentley,→OCLC,page71:With the landless gull, that at sunset folds her wings and is rocked to sleep between billows; so at nightfall, the Nantucketer, out of sight of land,furls his sails, and lays him to his rest, while under his very pillow rush herds of walruses and whales.
1866, Charles Dickens,The Signal-Man[1]:When he heard a voice thus calling to him, he was standing at the door of his box, with a flag in his hand,furled round its short pole.
1886,Peter Christen Asbjørnsen, translated by H.L. Brækstad,Folk and Fairy Tales, page191:"'Oh yes, that's all very well, but we haven't done with it yet,' said the lad, 'we shall have it worse directly,' and he ordered them tofurl every rag but the mizen."
to lower, roll up and secure something
