sill
/sɪl/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.00 in modern English
4
Scrabble Score
4
Letters
1
Syllables
3
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A breast wall; window breast; horizontal brink which forms the base of a window.
noun
A threshold; horizontal structural member of a building near ground level on a foundation or pilings, or lying on the ground, and bearing the upright portion of a frame; a sill plate.
noun
A stratum of rock, especially an intrusive layer of igneous rock lying parallel to surrounding strata.
noun
The inner edge of the bottom of an embrasure.
Example Sentences
- "She looked out the window resting her elbows on the window sill."
- "Minor palingenetic magmas probably were generated at this time and intruded the mantling rocks in the form of small sills and apophyses […]."
- "The molten rock in the sills may have ignited vast reserves of shallowly buried natural gas, much like a match applied to a gas barbecue."
- "the nasal sill"
Etymology
From Middle English sille, selle, sülle, from Old English syll, syl (“sill, threshold, foundation, base, basis”), from Proto-Germanic *sulī (“bar, sill”), from Proto-Indo-European *sel-, *swel- (“beam, board, frame, threshold”). Cognate with Scots sil, sill (“balk, beam, floor, sill”), Dutch zulle (“sill”), Low German Sull, Sülle (“threshold, ramp, sill”), German Süll, Sülle (“threshold, sill”), Danish syld (“base of a framework building”), Swedish syll (“joist, cross-tie”), Norwegian syll, Icelandic syll, sylla (“sill”). Related also to German Schwelle ( > Danish svelle), Old Norse svill, Latin silva (“wood, forest”), Ancient Greek ὕλη (húlē).