pencil.
A writing utensil with a graphite (commonly referred to as lead) shaft, usually blended with clay, clad in wood, and sharpened to a taper.
Meaning & usage
A writing utensil with a graphite (commonly referred to as lead) shaft, usually blended with clay, clad in wood, and sharpened to a taper.
An aggregate or collection of rays of light, especially when diverging from, or converging to, a point.
A family of geometric objects with a common property, such as the set of lines that pass through a given point in a projective plane.
A paintbrush.
A small medicated bougie.
A small, thin tuft of hairs or feathers.
Ellipsis of power of the pencil.
Where this word comes from
From Anglo-Norman and Old French pincil (see the variant pincel, which gave rise to Modern French pinceau (“paintbrush”)), from Latin pēnicillum, diminutive of pēniculus (“brush”), itself a diminutive of pēnis (“tail; penis”). Doublet of penis. Not related to pen.
To write (something) using a pencil.
I penciled (BrE: pencilled) a brief reminder in my notebook.
To mark with, or as if with, a pencil.
Where this word comes from
From Anglo-Norman and Old French pincil (see the variant pincel, which gave rise to Modern French pinceau (“paintbrush”)), from Latin pēnicillum, diminutive of pēniculus (“brush”), itself a diminutive of pēnis (“tail; penis”). Doublet of penis. Not related to pen.
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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.