Sill Definition

sĭl
sills
noun
A heavy, horizontal timber or line of masonry supporting a house wall, etc.
Webster's New World
A horizontal piece forming the bottom frame of the opening into which a window or door is set.
Webster's New World
A flattened piece of igneous rock forced between beds of stratified rocks.
Webster's New World

A horizontal, structural member of a building near ground level on a foundation or pilings or lying on the ground in earth-fast construction and bearing the upright portion of a frame. Also spelled cill. Also called a ground plate, groundsill, sole, sole-plate, mudsill. An interrupted sill fits between posts instead of being below and supporting the posts in timber framing.

Wiktionary

(UK) A young herring.

Wiktionary
Synonyms:

Other Word Forms of Sill

Noun

Singular:
sill
Plural:
sills

Origin of Sill

  • From Middle English sille, selle, sülle, from Old English syll, syl (“sill, threshold, foundation, base, basis"), from Proto-Germanic *sulÄ« (“bar, sill"), from Proto-Indo-European *sel-, *swel- (“beam, board, frame, threshold"). Cognate with Scots sil, sill (“balk, beam, floor, sill"), Dutch zul (“sill"), Low German Sull, Sülle (“threshold, ramp, 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").

    From Wiktionary

  • Middle English sille from Old English syll threshold

    From American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition

  • Compare thill.

    From Wiktionary

  • Compare sile.

    From Wiktionary

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