Word.ws English Dictionary

mudsill

mudsill noun: the lowest sill of a structure, usually placed in or on the ground.

Noun

mudsill (plural mudsills)

  1. The lowest sill of a structure, usually placed in or on the ground.
  2. (figuratively) A particularly low or dirty place/state; the nadir of something (see rock bottom)
    • The Pre-Historic Era was the mudsill of human development.
  3. (Southern US, dated) A person of low status or humble provenance.
    • We were now miserable mercenaries, serving for low pay and rough rations. Read the Southern papers and you will see us described. “Mudsills,” — that, I believe, is the technical word.1861, Theodore Winthrop, Washington as a Camp, The Following Is the Oath
    • General Lee throw down his sword and surrender his invincible Southern legions to that poor little Northern mud-sill, a late tanner from Illinois!1868, Carl Schurz, The Road to Peace — a Solid, Durable Peace

mudsill meaning in Tamil

mudsill in Tamil

மண் பலகணி

Forms of mudsill

pluralmudsills
alternative formmud sill
alternative formmud-sill

Origin of mudsill

"1685, 'lowest sill of a house,' from mud + sill. The word entered U.S. political history in a speech by James M. Hammond of South Carolina, March 4, 1858, in U.S. Senate, alluding to the very mudsills of society, and the term subsequently was embraced by Northern workers in the pre-Civil War sectional rivalry." (OED, 2007)

Questions about mudsill

What does mudsill mean?
Mudsill means the lowest sill of a structure, usually placed in or on the ground.
What is mudsill in Tamil?
Mudsill in Tamil is மண் பலகணி. See Mudsill meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is mudsill?
Mudsill is a noun.
What is the plural of mudsill?
The plural of mudsill is mudsills.

Words near mudsill in the dictionary

  1. mudscows
  2. mudshark
  3. mudsharked
  4. mudsharking
  5. mudsharks
  6. mudsill
  7. mudsills
  8. mudskipper
  9. mudskippers
  10. mudsled
  11. mudsleds

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: mudsill (page history and authors); mudsill (Tamil 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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Cite this entry: “mudsill.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/mudsill. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.