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SILL
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Structural member consisting of a continuous horizontal timber forming the lowest member of a framework or supporting structure
Classified under:
Nouns denoting man-made objects
Hypernyms ("sill" is a kind of...):
structural member (support that is a constituent part of any structure or building)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "sill"):
doorsill; doorstep; threshold (the sill of a door; a horizontal piece of wood or stone that forms the bottom of a doorway and offers support when passing through a doorway)
windowsill (the sill of a window; the horizontal member at the bottom of the window frame)
Sense 2
Meaning:
(geology) a flat (usually horizontal) mass of igneous rock between two layers of older sedimentary rock
Classified under:
Nouns denoting natural objects (not man-made)
Hypernyms ("sill" is a kind of...):
rock; stone (a lump or mass of hard consolidated mineral matter)
Domain category:
geology (a science that deals with the history of the earth as recorded in rocks)
Context examples:
I had let myself go, and was hanging by the hands to the sill, when his blow fell.
(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
About a week ago—it was the Tuesday of last week—I found on one of the window-sills a number of absurd little dancing figures like these upon the paper.
(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
She was fast asleep, and by her, seated on the window-sill, was something that looked like a good-sized bird.
(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)
The remains of my breakfast of bread and milk stood on the table, and having crumbled a morsel of roll, I was tugging at the sash to put out the crumbs on the window-sill, when Bessie came running upstairs into the nursery.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
It had begun to grow dark, and I had shut the window (I had been lying, for the most part, with my head upon the sill, by turns crying, dozing, and looking listlessly out), when the key was turned, and Miss Murdstone came in with some bread and meat, and milk.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
This he opened and made a very careful examination of the sill with his powerful magnifying lens.
(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
There distinctly was Lucy with her head lying up against the side of the window-sill and her eyes shut.
(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)
I clambered out upon the sill, but I hesitated to jump until I should have heard what passed between my saviour and the ruffian who pursued me.
(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
He has the sugar of his tea spread out on the window-sill, and is reaping quite a harvest of flies.
(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)
The firemen had been much perturbed at the strange arrangements which they had found within, and still more so by discovering a newly severed human thumb upon a window-sill of the second floor.
(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
