Word Pronunciation & Dictionary

doily

/ˈdɔɪli/

Word Rarity Very rare

Frequency: 2.11 in modern English

Syllables: doily
IPA: /ˈdɔɪli/

9

Scrabble Score

5

Letters

2

Syllables

5

Unique Chars

Meaning

noun

A small ornamental piece of lace or linen or paper used to protect a surface from scratches by hard objects such as vases or bowls; or to decorate a plate of food.

noun

A similar circular piece of lace worn as a head-covering by some married Jewish women.

noun

An old kind of woollen material.

Obsolete

Example Sentences

"She looked polite, and observed the oiled floors, hard-wood staircase, unused fireplace with tiles which resembled brown linoleum, cut-glass vases standing upon doilies, and the barred, shut, forbidding unit bookcases that were half filled with swashbuckler novels and unread-looking sets of Dickens, Kipling, O. Henry, and Elbert Hubbard."
"Beg pardon, I'm soiling the doileys / With afternoon tea-cakes and scones."

Etymology

From Doiley, the name of a 17th-century London draper. The surname is Anglo-Norman, from d'Œuilly, name of several places in Calvados, from Old French oeil (“eye”).

Origin

Source language: Old French

Word Breakdown

Root: -, oeil

Usage

Obsolete

Inflected Forms

doilies (plural) doyley (alternative) doiley (alternative)

Derived Forms

doilied

Synonyms

doyley doyly

Rhymes With

oily coyly

Questions

How do you pronounce doily?: The recorded pronunciation is /ˈdɔɪli/.
What does doily mean?: A small ornamental piece of lace or linen or paper used to protect a surface from scratches by hard objects such as vases or bowls; or to decorate a plate of food.
Where does doily come from?: It is traced to Old French.

How to pronounce doily

Open the pronunciation page — Open the Speakur entry for “doily”.
Read the phonetic spelling — Read the IPA spelling (/ˈdɔɪli/) so you know which sounds to aim for.
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