PARASAILING

noun Also written para-sailing (Lifestyle and Leisure) The sport of gliding through the air attached to an open parachute and towed by a speedboat. Etymology: Formed by combining the first two syllables of parachute with sailing, probably after the model of parascending. History and Usage: Parasailing developed at the very end of the sixties but did not become established as a sport until the second half of the seventies. Essentially, parasailing is an airborne variation on water-skiing; it differs from parascending in that the person being towed remains attached to the tow boat rather than letting go once the right height has been reached. The verb parasail has been back-formed from parasailing and can be used transitively or intransitively; a person who does this is a parasailer or parasailor (the spelling variation displaying uncertainty as to whether verbs ending in -sail should form their derivatives in the same way as sail: compare boardsailer and boardsailor under boardsailing). There are glass-bottomed boats, Canadian canoes, sailboats and windsurfers--you can even go parasailing. Meridian Spring 1990, p. 42