cell
/sɛl/
Word Rarity
Uncommon
Frequency: 4.87 in modern English
6
Scrabble Score
4
Letters
1
Syllables
3
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A small monastery or nunnery dependent on a larger religious establishment.
noun
A small room in a monastery or nunnery accommodating one person.
noun
Each of the small hexagonal compartments in a honeycomb.
noun
The discal cell of the wing of a lepidopteran insect.
noun
Specifically, any of the supposed compartments of the brain, formerly thought to be the source of specific mental capacities, knowledge, or memories.
Obsolete
Example Sentences
- "So, taking them apart into his cell, / He to that point fit speaches gan to frame […]."
- "For three days he and his attendants had wandered in the forest without seeing a human form: but on the evening of the third they came to a cell, in which they found a venerable hermit in the agonies of death."
- "Gregor Mendel must have spent a good amount of time outside of his cell."
- "A nunʼs bedroom is properly called a cell and is small, bare, and plain, without comfort."
- "The combatants spent the night in separate cells."
- "Each of the two cells or lobes of the anther is marked with a lateral line or furrow, running from top to bottom[…]."
Etymology
From Middle English celle, selle, from Old English cell (attested in inflected forms), from Latin cella (“chamber, small room, compartment”), later reinforced by Old French cel, sele, Old French cele. Ultimately from Proto-Italic *kelnā, from Proto-Indo-European *ḱelneh₂, from Proto-Indo-European *ḱel- (“to cover”). Doublet of cella and hall.