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Sill

//sɪl// adj, name, noun, slang

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    Silly. rare, slang
Proper Noun
  1. 1
    A surname.
Noun
  1. 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. 2
    A young herring. UK
  3. 3
    The shaft or thill of a carriage.
  4. 4
    structural member consisting of a continuous horizontal timber forming the lowest member of a framework or supporting structure wordnet
  5. 5
    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.
Show 5 more definitions
  1. 6
    (geology) a flat (usually horizontal) mass of igneous rock between two layers of older sedimentary rock wordnet
  2. 7
    A stratum of rock, especially an intrusive layer of igneous rock lying parallel to surrounding strata.

    "Minor palingenetic magmas probably were generated at this time and intruded the mantling rocks in the form of small sills and apophyses […]."

  3. 8
    A threshold or brink across the bottom of a canal lock for the gates to shut against.
  4. 9
    A raised area at the base of the nasal aperture in the skull.

    "the nasal sill"

  5. 10
    The inner edge of the bottom of an embrasure. historical

Etymology

Etymology 1

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).

Etymology 2

Compare sile.

Etymology 3

Compare thill.

Etymology 4

Short for silly.

Etymology 5

English surname, variant of Silvester (from Sylvester) and Silvano.

See also for "sill"

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