Windowsill

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /ˈwɪndəʊˌsɪl/

Definitions

1. A flat, horizontal projection beneath a window that serves as a small shelf for plants or decorative items while also supporting the window structure
2. The ledge located at the base of a window, providing a surface for placing items and giving support to the window frame
3. A flat surface extending inward at the bottom of a window frame that can hold objects or plants

Etymology: Long before glass was common, the Old Norse "vindauga" meant "wind-eye": a hole in a wall that let air and light in. That compound travelled into English as "wyndowe" in Middle English, where it still described an opening rather than a pane of glass. The first element, "wind", goes back to a Proto-Germanic root meaning "wind", and the second, "eye", ultimately to a word for an organ of sight, so the original picture was of a gap in the wall that let the breeze look in. The "sill" half has a separate history. It comes from Old English "syll", a word for a beam or base on which something rests, and it reached Middle English as "sille". The threshold of a window was simply the beam at its bottom edge, which is why the ledge and the opening were named separately before being joined. Windowsill is a plain compound of "window" and "sill", formed in English from those two existing words.

Synonyms: sill