Word.ws English Dictionary

nacelle

Syllables: na·celle/nəˈsɛl/

nacelle noun: the compartment that holds passengers on a dirigible, hot-air balloon, or other aerostat; a gondola.

Noun

nacelle (plural nacelles)

  1. The compartment that holds passengers on a dirigible, hot-air balloon, or other aerostat; a gondola.
  2. A separate streamlined enclosure mounted on an aircraft to house, originally, an engine, and now also cargo or crew.
  3. (archaic) The cockpit of an aircraft.
  4. (broadly) A hollow boat-shaped structure.
  5. (broadly) An enclosure housing machinery or a motor.
  6. (broadly) The part between the rotor and tower of a wind turbine.
  7. (broadly) The submersed providers of buoyancy of a SWATH-hulled boat.
  8. (broadly) A streamlined enclosure on the body or dashboard of a motor vehicle.

nacelle meaning in Bengali, Arabic and Indonesian

nacelle in Bengali

বিমানপোতের ইনজিনের বাইরের আবরণ, খোল

nacelle in Arabic

separate streamlined enclosure mounted on an aircraft to house an engine, cargo, or crew
باسنة

nacelle in Indonesian

separate streamlined enclosure mounted on an aircraft to house an engine, cargo, or crew
nasel

Forms of nacelle

pluralnacelles

Origin of nacelle

PIE word *néh₂us Borrowed from French nacelle (“rowing boat, skiff; gondola (of a hot-air balloon, etc.); structure on an aircraft to house an engine”), Middle French nacelle (“rowing boat, skiff”), from Old French nacele, from Late Latin naucella, nāvicella (“small boat or ship”), from Latin nāvis (“a ship”) (from Proto-Indo-European *néh₂us (“a boat”)) + -ella (diminutive suffix). Cognates * Anglo-Norman naucele, naucle (“small boat”) * Late Latin nacella (“small boat”)

Words that rhyme with nacelle

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about nacelle

What does nacelle mean?
Nacelle means the compartment that holds passengers on a dirigible, hot-air balloon, or other aerostat; a gondola.
What is nacelle in Bengali?
Nacelle in Bengali is বিমানপোতের ইনজিনের বাইরের আবরণ, খোল. See Nacelle meaning in Bengali.
What part of speech is nacelle?
Nacelle is a noun.
How do you pronounce nacelle?
Nacelle is pronounced /nəˈsɛl/ (UK).
What is the plural of nacelle?
The plural of nacelle is nacelles.

Words near nacelle in the dictionary

  1. Naccarato
  2. Naccaratos
  3. NACCHO
  4. NACD
  5. Nace
  6. nacelle
  7. nacelles
  8. nacellid
  9. nacellids
  10. nacent
  11. Naces

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: nacelle (page history and authors); nacelle (Bengali 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-nacelle.wav.

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