ceil
/siːl/
ceil verb: to line or finish (a surface, such as a wall), with plaster, stucco, thin boards, or similar. Also the abbreviation of ceiling.
Verb (1)
ceil (third-person singular simple present ceils, present participle ceiling, simple past and past participle ceiled)
- To line or finish (a surface, such as a wall), with plaster, stucco, thin boards, or similar.
- It is nearly always old and bare, built of rough boards, and neither plastered nor ceiled.1903 June 1, W[illiam] E[dward] Burghardt Du Bois, “Of the Quest of the Golden Fleece”, in The Souls of Black Folk: Essays and Sketches, 2nd edition, Chicago, Ill.: A[lexander] C[aldwell] McClurg &...
Noun
ceil (plural ceils)
- A ceiling.
- […] The mossy sward / Beneath their feet, their carpet was, / An azure ceil, the sky above; […]1890, Ambrose E. Pratt, Two Hundred and Fiftieth Anniversary Celebration of Sandwich and Bourne, at Sandwich, Massachusetts, September 3, 1889, page 89
Verb (2)
ceil (third-person singular simple present ceils, present participle ceiling, simple past and past participle ceiled)
- To set a higher bound.
Also used as
ceil is also the abbreviation of ceiling.
Forms of ceil
| Verb | |
|---|---|
| third-person singular present | ceils |
| present participle | ceiling |
| past participle | ceiled |
| past | ceiled |
| alternative form | ciel |
| Noun | |
| plural | ceils |
Origin of ceil
Uncertain; perhaps related to Latin cēlō (“to hide”).
Abbrevation of ceiling, influenced by French ciel
Words formed from ceil
Phrases with ceil
Words that rhyme with ceil
48 more rhymesFewer rhymes
- keel
- anneal
- creel
- peal
- peel
- sweal
- congeal
- Izmail
- kneel
- meal
- Neale
- streal
- weal
- awheel
- Castile
- cochineal
- feal
- heal
- Lille
- ordeal
- repeal
- sele
- squeal
- teal
- zeal
- debile
- dishabille
- hele
- leal
- lifesteal
- Neil
- Niel
- O'Neill
- reveal
- schlemiel
- seel
- she'll
- shiel
- skeel
- spiel
- square meal
- unseal
- veal
- we'll
- weel
- ye'll
- -meal
- allele
Questions about ceil
- What does ceil mean?
- Ceil means to line or finish (a surface, such as a wall), with plaster, stucco, thin boards, or similar.
- What part of speech is ceil?
- Ceil can be a verb or a noun.
- How do you pronounce ceil?
- Ceil is pronounced /siːl/.
- What is the past tense of ceil?
- The past tense of ceil is ceiled.
Words near ceil in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: ceil (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-ceil.wav.
Cite this entry: “ceil.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/ceil. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.