Celle

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A small room or compartment typically used for solitary confinement or monastic living; a fundamental structural unit in biology where life processes occur; a compact storage unit or enclosure for tools or supplies
2. A narrow chamber designed for isolation or meditation; the basic biological building block containing genetic material; a contained area used for organizing equipment or provisions
3. A confined space often used for punishment or religious dedication; the microscopic unit of organisms responsible for vital functions; a devoted small space for keeping items securely stored

Etymology: "Celle" in the sense of a basic living unit is a borrowing from German, where the word means the same thing: a small compartment or cell. In English it names the smallest self-contained unit of a living organism, the building block from which larger bodies are made. The word has been borrowed directly from German, so it arrived as a foreign term rather than through the Latin and French channels that shaped most of the scientific vocabulary of English. The meaning in German is older and more everyday than the biological sense. A "Zelle" there is a small room or chamber, the kind of enclosed space a prisoner or monk occupies, and that domestic image of a walled compartment is what carried over when the term was applied to the microscopic units that naturally fill living tissue.

Synonyms: cell