Word.ws English Dictionary

easel

Syllables: ea·sel/ˈiː.z(ə)l//ˈi.zəl/

easel noun: an upright frame, typically on three legs, for displaying or supporting something, such as an artist's canvas.

easel: an upright frame, typically on three legs, for displaying or supporting something, such as an...
Image: W.carter, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

easel (plural easels)

  1. An upright frame, typically on three legs, for displaying or supporting something, such as an artist's canvas.
    • Chevalet, (chaſſis de bois ſur lequel les Peintres poſent leurs Tableaux quand ils travaillent) a Painter's Eaſel.1702, [Abel] Boyer, “CHEVALET”, in Dictionnaire royal, François et Anglois. Le Francois tiré des dictionnaires de Richelet, Furetiere, Tachard, de l'Academie Françoise, & des Remarques de Vaugelas...
    • His [Raphael's] eaſel works ſtand in a lower degree of eſtimation; for though he continually, till the day of his death, embelliſhed his works more and more with the addition of theſe lower ornaments, which entirely make the merit of ſome; yet he never arrived at ſuch perfection as to make him an...1772 December 10, [Joshua Reynolds], A Discourse, Delivered to the Students of the Royal Academy, on the Distribution of Prizes, December 10, 1772, London: Printed by W. Griffin, printer; and sold by...

easel meaning in Bengali, Kannada, Tagalog and Arabic

easel in Bengali

একটি উল্লম্ব কাঠামো

easel in Kannada

ಆನಿಕೆ

easel in Tagalog

upright frame for displaying or supporting something
kabalyete

easel in Arabic

upright frame for displaying or supporting something
حَامِل ḥāmil
More languagesFewer languages
easel in Persian
خرک xarak, سهپایه نقاشی se-pâye-ye naqqâši
easel in Vietnamese
giá vẽ

Examples of easel in a sentence

  • [H]is constant advice to students was to copy nature, and if they wished to draw a tree well, to place their easels in a field, and copy the tree exactly as it stood before them.1817 May, “Biographical Sketches of Eminent Painters. George Morland, (Concluded from Our Last.)”, in La Belle Assemblée or Bell's Court...
  • No … we have an easel painter, a stuntman, and a … a …1991 December, Paul Chadwick, “American Christmas [from Within Our Reach]”, in Concrete: Short Stories, 1990–1995, Milwaukie, Or.: Dark...
  • It would also form part of a new carriage design, which had started out on Swindon drawing office easels two years earlier.2024 March 20, Greg Morse, “XP64: the train the ^([sic]): [that] launched a new style”, in RAIL, number 1005, page 45:

Forms of easel

pluraleasels

Plural of easel: easels

Origin of easel

Borrowed from Dutch ezel (“donkey; easel”), from Middle Dutch esel (“donkey”), from Proto-West Germanic *asil, from Latin asellus (“young ass or small donkey”), diminutive of asinus (“ass, donkey”), ultimately from an unknown source in Asia Minor. Essentially, the stand that a painting is placed on is being likened to a donkey carrying a burden; compare horse (“a frame with legs used to support something”), as in clotheshorse and sawhorse.

Words formed from easel

Words that rhyme with easel

Questions about easel

What does easel mean?
Easel means an upright frame, typically on three legs, for displaying or supporting something, such as an artist's canvas.
What is easel in Bengali?
Easel in Bengali is একটি উল্লম্ব কাঠামো. See Easel meaning in Bengali.
How do you use easel in a sentence?
[H]is constant advice to students was to copy nature, and if they wished to draw a tree well, to place their easels in a field, and copy the tree exactly as it stood before them.
What part of speech is easel?
Easel is a noun.
How do you pronounce easel?
Easel is pronounced /ˈiː.z(ə)l/ (UK).
What is the plural of easel?
The plural of easel is easels.

Words near easel in the dictionary

  1. eased up
  2. easeful
  3. easefull
  4. easefully
  5. easefulness
  6. easel
  7. easeled
  8. easeless
  9. easelessness
  10. easellike
  11. easels

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: easel (page history and authors); easel (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); easel (Kannada Wiktionary) (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.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-easel.wav, En-us-easel.ogg.

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