sill

• enPR: sĭl, IPA^(key): /sɪl/

• Audio (Southern England)

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• Rhymes: -ɪl

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).

sill (plural sills)

1. (architecture, also "window sill") 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. (construction) 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.

   Coordinate terms: ground plate, groundsill, sole, sole plate, mudsill

3. (geology) A stratum of rock, especially an intrusive layer of igneous rock lying parallel to surrounding strata.
   • 1980, Geological Survey Professional Paper, Volume 1119, U.S. Government Printing Office:

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

   • 2018, Tim Flannery, Europe: The First 100 Million Years, Penguin, published 2019, page 55::

     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.

4. A threshold or brink across the bottom of a canal lock for the gates to shut against.
5. (anatomy) A raised area at the base of the nasal aperture in the skull.

   the nasal sill

6. (military, historical) The inner edge of the bottom of an embrasure.

• Usually spelled cill when used in the context of canal or river engineering.

• For quotations using this term, see Citations:sill.

• cross-sill
• doorsill
• groundsill
• mudsill
• silled
• windowsill

• lintel
• plate sense #13 (construction)

Compare sile.

sill (plural sills)

1. (UK) A young herring.

Compare thill.

sill (plural sills)

1. The shaft or thill of a carriage.

Short for silly.

sill (comparative more sill, superlative most sill)

1. (rare, slang) Silly.

• Harris, Cyril M.. Illustrated dictionary of historic architecture. New York: Dover Publications, 1983, 1977. Groundsill →ISBN

• ills

Unadapted borrowing from French sill, from English sill.

sill n (uncountable)

1. (geology) sill

From Old Norse síld, from Proto-Germanic *sīlą.

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• IPA^(key): /sɪl/, [sɪlː]

sill c

1. herring

• Herring from the Atlantic on Sweden's west coast is called sill. The subspecies fished from the Baltic Sea on Sweden's east coast is called strömming.

• strömming

• sill in Svensk ordbok (SO)
• sill in Svenska Akademiens ordlista (SAOL)
• sill in Svenska Akademiens ordbok (SAOB)

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

sill f (plural sillau or silloedd, not mutable)

1. Alternative form of sillaf (“syllable”)

• R. J. Thomas, G. A. Bevan, P. J. Donovan, A. Hawke et al., editors (1950–present), “sill”, in Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru Online (in Welsh), University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh & Celtic Studies