ginnel
UK/ˈɡɪnəl/
ginnel noun: a narrow passageway or alley often between terraced houses.
Noun
ginnel (plural ginnels)
- A narrow passageway or alley often between terraced houses.
- […]maks things as pleasant as stondin in a ginnel ov a wyndy neet waitin o'th' sweetheart comin out.1885, Benjamin Brierley, Ab-o'th'-Yate in Yankeeland, page 59
- At the end of a short side-street a narrow ginnel with concrete bollards led into the surprisingly wide area in which the blocks of flats stood.1988, Alan Hollinghurst, The Swimming-Pool Library, paperback edition, London: Penguin Books, →ISBN, page 169
Synonyms of ginnel
Forms of ginnel
| plural | ginnels |
|---|---|
| alternative form | gennel |
Origin of ginnel
From dialectal ginn (“a road or passage down to the sea”) + -el (diminutive suffix), ultimately from Old English gin (“an opening, gap, abyss”) or Old Norse gin (“throat, gullet, maw”), both from Proto-Germanic *giną (“throat, gullet”).
Words formed from ginnel
Words that rhyme with ginnel
Questions about ginnel
- What does ginnel mean?
- Ginnel means a narrow passageway or alley often between terraced houses.
- What part of speech is ginnel?
- Ginnel is a noun.
- How do you pronounce ginnel?
- Ginnel is pronounced /ˈɡɪnəl/ (UK).
- What is the plural of ginnel?
- The plural of ginnel is ginnels.
Words near ginnel in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: ginnel (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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Cite this entry: “ginnel.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/ginnel. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.