Word.ws English Dictionary

coil

UK/kɔɪl/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

British/koj(ə)l/

coil noun: something wound in the form of a helix or spiral.

coil: something wound in the form of a helix or spiral
Image: CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun (1)

coil (plural coils)

  1. Something wound in the form of a helix or spiral.
    • the sinuous coils of a snake
    • The wild grapevines that twisted their coils or tendrils from tree to tree.1819 June 23 – 1820 September 13, Geoffrey Crayon [pseudonym; Washington Irving], “(please specify the title)”, in The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent., New York, N.Y.: […] C[ornelius] S. Van...
  2. (colloquial) Any intrauterine device for contraception (originally coil-shaped).
    • ‘I’m gonna go on the pill and get fitted for a coil. I don’t wanna be pregnant. Ever. Again!’2020, Paul Mendez, Rainbow Milk, Dialogue Books (2021), page 293
    • And now, finally, the contraceptive burden would fall on me. After Hayley’s years of toil with a coil, and the pain of childbirth, I was due a little discomfort.2026 May 11, Tim Burrows, “My first thought after having a vasectomy: why aren’t more British men having them?”, in The Guardian, →ISSN
  3. A coil of electrically conductive wire through which electricity can flow.
    Synonyms:
    inductor
  4. A cylinder of clay.
  5. (figuratively) Entanglement; perplexity.
    • What trifling coil do we mortals keep;
      Wake, eat, and drink, evacuate, and sleep.a. 1722, Matthew Prior, “Human Life”, in H. Bunker Wright, Monroe K. Spears, editors, The Literary Works of Matthew Prior, Second edition, volume I, Oxford: Clarendon Press, published 1971, page 687

Verb

coil (third-person singular simple present coils, present participle coiling, simple past and past participle coiled)

  1. To wind or reel e.g. a wire or rope into regular rings, often around a centerpiece.
    • A simple transformer can be made by coiling two pieces of insulated copper wire around an iron heart.
    Synonyms:
    spire
  2. To wind into loops (roughly) around a common center.
    • The sailor coiled the free end of the hawser on the pier.
  3. To wind cylindrically or spirally.
    • to coil a rope when not in use
    • The snake coiled itself before springing.
  4. To build a pot (etc) with clay coils.
  5. (obsolete, rare) To encircle and hold with, or as if with, coils.
    • a. 1757, Thomas Edwards, sonnet to Mr. Nathanael Mason
      Pleasure coil thee in her dangerous snare

Noun (2)

coil (plural coils)

  1. (now obsolete except in phrases) A noise, tumult, bustle, or turmoil.
    • a. 1738, Thomas Urquhart, Peter Anthony Motteux, and John Ozell (translators), François Rabelais, Gargantua and Pantagruel
      And when he saw that all the dogs were flocking about her, yarring at the retardment of their access to her, and every way keeping such a coil with her as they are wont to do...
    • If the windes rage, doth not the Sea wax mad, / Threatning the welkin with his big-swolne face? / And wilt thou haue a reason for this coile?c. 1588–1593 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Lamentable Tragedy of Titus Andronicus”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac...

Noun (3)

coil

  1. (informal, slang) A wad of cash.

Noun (4) capitalized: COIL

COIL (plural COILs)

  1. (abbreviation) Abbreviation of chemical oxygen-iodine laser.

Proper noun capitalized: Coil

Coil (plural Coils)

  1. A surname.

coil meaning in Hindi, Marathi, Urdu and Bengali

coil in Hindi

something wound
कुंडली kuṇḍlī
wind into regular rings
कुंडली kuṇḍlī
wind into loops
कुंडली kuṇḍlī

coil in Marathi

something wound
गुंडाळी guṇḍāḷī

coil in Urdu

کوائل

coil in Bengali

কয়েল, কয়েল করা
More languagesFewer languages
coil in Malayalam
കോയിൽ
coil in Kannada
ಕಾಯಿಲ್
coil in Gujarati
કોઇલ, કોઈલ, કોઇલ કરવા માટે
coil in Odia
କୁଣ୍ଡଳୀ, କୁଣ୍ଡଳି
coil in Nepali
कोइल, कोइल गर्न
coil in Tagalog
kidkid
coil in Arabic
مِلَفّ milaff, وَشِيعَة wašīʕa
coil in Vietnamese
cuộn cảm

Examples of coil in a sentence

  • I saw the snake-like coils of the garden hose peeking out from under the deck.
  • Wireless phone technology led to the disappearance of once-common coiled cords for telephone handsets.
  • The snake was coiled about his ankle.

All 40 example sentences with coil

Synonyms of coil

Forms of coil

Noun
pluralcoils
pluralCOILs
Verb
third-person singular presentcoils
present participlecoiling
past participlecoiled
pastcoiled
Proper noun
pluralCoils

Past tense of coil: coiled

Plural of coil: coils

Origin of coil

From Middle English coilen, from Old French coillir, cuillir (“to gather, pluck, pick, cull”) (modern French cueillir), from Latin colligō (“to gather together”), past participle collectus, from com- (“together”) + legō (“to gather”); compare legend. Doublet of cull.

Unknown.

Words formed from coil

Phrases with coil

Words that rhyme with coil

18 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about coil

What does coil mean?
Coil means something wound in the form of a helix or spiral.
What is coil in Hindi?
Coil in Hindi is कुंडली (kuṇḍlī). See Coil meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is coil?
Coil can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce coil?
Coil is pronounced /kɔɪl/ (UK).
What is the plural of coil?
The plural of coil is coils.

Words near coil in the dictionary

  1. coigns of vantage
  2. coigue
  3. coigues
  4. coihue
  5. coihues
  6. coil
  7. coil gun
  8. coil guns
  9. coil spring
  10. coil springs
  11. coil up

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: coil (page history and authors); COIL (page history and authors); Coil (page history and authors); coil (Urdu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); coil (Bengali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); coil (Malayalam, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); coil (Kannada, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); coil (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); coil (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); coil (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). 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: en-us-coil.ogg.

Cite this entry: “coil.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/coil. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.