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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

sill.

A breast wall; window breast; horizontal brink which forms the base of a window.

4 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/sɪl/

  1. A breast wall; window breast; horizontal brink which forms the base of a window.

    She looked out the window resting her elbows on the window sill.

  2. 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.

  3. A stratum of rock, especially an intrusive layer of igneous rock lying parallel to surrounding strata.

  4. A threshold or brink across the bottom of a canal lock for the gates to shut against.

  5. A raised area at the base of the nasal aperture in the skull.

    the nasal sill

  6. The inner edge of the bottom of an embrasure.

    historical
Where this word comes from

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).

noun/sɪl/

  1. A young herring.

    UK
Where this word comes from

Compare sile.

noun/sɪl/

  1. The shaft or thill of a carriage.

Where this word comes from

Compare thill.

adj/sɪl/

  1. Silly.

    rare · slang
Where this word comes from

Short for silly.

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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.