Word.ws English Dictionary

oillet

oillet noun: a round hole or circle with which an opening for an arrowslit terminates.

oillet: a round hole or circle with which an opening for an arrowslit terminates
Image: Gilgamesh, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

oillet (plural oillets)

  1. (medieval architecture) A round hole or circle with which an opening for an arrowslit terminates.
    • Entertaining myself with such reflections as these, I had walked perhaps half a league (halting from time to time to spy out both public halls and private apartments through the oillets the place provided) when I stumbled over the body of an assassin.1987, Gene Wolfe, chapter XLI, in The Urth of the New Sun, 1st US edition, New York: Tor Books, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 244

Forms of oillet

pluraloillets
alternative formoylet

Origin of oillet

Borrowed from French œillet, from œil (“eye”), from Latin oculum, accusative singular of oculus.

Questions about oillet

What does oillet mean?
Oillet means a round hole or circle with which an opening for an arrowslit terminates.
What part of speech is oillet?
Oillet is a noun.
What is the plural of oillet?
The plural of oillet is oillets.

Words near oillet in the dictionary

  1. oilionaire
  2. oilionaires
  3. oilish
  4. oilless
  5. oillessness
  6. oillet
  7. oillets
  8. oillike
  9. oilman
  10. oilmen
  11. oilmonger

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: oillet (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: “oillet.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/oillet. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.