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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

carrel.

Alternative spelling of carol (“a small closet or enclosure built against the inner side of a window of a monastery's cloister, to sit in for study”).

6 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˈkæɹəl/Received-Pronunciation/ˈkɛɹəl/General-American
  1. Alternative spelling of carol (“a small closet or enclosure built against the inner side of a window of a monastery's cloister, to sit in for study”).

    alt-of · alternative · obsolete
  2. A partitioned space for reading or studying, often in a library.

    broadly
    He was busy writing his report in a small library carrel.
Where this word comes from

A variant of carol (“small closet or enclosure”), from Middle English carole (“round dance with singing; group of people dancing and singing in a circle; circular thing; braid, chain (?); stall for study or writing; writing table; etc.”) (possibly referring to the fact that the item encloses or surrounds the person using it): see further at carol.

noun/ˈkæɹəl/Received-Pronunciation/ˈkɛɹəl/General-American
  1. A type of fabric used in the 16th and 17th centuries.

    obsolete
Where this word comes from

Probably borrowed from Middle French carrelé (“type of fabric”), probably from carrelé (“having checks”), an adjective use of the past participle of carreler (“to pave; to tile”) (modern French carreler), from carrel + -er (suffix forming infinitives of first-conjugation verbs). Carrel is a variant of carreau (“square; tile”), from Old French quarel (“square block of stone”), from Vulgar Latin *quadrellus, from Latin quadrus (“square”, adjective), probably from quattuor (“four”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *kʷetwóres (“four”)) + -us (suffix forming adjectives).

noun/ˈkæɹəl/Received-Pronunciation/ˈkɛɹəl/General-American
  1. Synonym of quarrel (“a square-headed arrow”).

    obsolete
Where this word comes from

Possibly a variant of quarrel.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.