pencil
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈpɛnsəl/
ipa: /ˈpɛntsəl/
note: Received Pronunciation, Indic, also
ipa: /ˈpɛnsɪl/
rhymes: -ɛnsəl
Forms: form: pencils
form: pensill
Etymology: From Anglo-Norman and Old French pincil (see the variant pincel, which gave rise to Modern French pinceau (“paintbrush”)), from Latin pēnicillum, diminutive of pēniculus (“brush”), itself a diminutive of pēnis (“tail; penis”). Not related to pen.
Senses: examples: text: But living art may not least part expresse, / Nor life-resembling pencill it can paynt[…].
ref: 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Prologue”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, page 389:
text: why is it not lawfull for every man to pourtray himself with his pen, as it was for him to doe it with a pensell?
ref: 1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 17, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes […], book II, London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], →OCLC:
text: He requested three things of Sir Joshua Reynolds:—To forgive him thirty pounds which he had borrowed of him; to read the Bible; and never to use his pencil on a Sunday.
ref: 1791, James Boswell, Life of Johnson, Oxford, published 2008, page 1390:
glosses: A paintbrush.
synonyms: lead pencil
glosses: A writing utensil with a graphite (commonly referred to as lead) shaft, usually blended with clay, clad in wood, and sharpened to a taper.
topics: engineering
natural-sciences
optics
physical-sciences
physics
glosses: An aggregate or collection of rays of light, especially when diverging from, or converging to, a point.
examples: text: When, by the pencil becoming oblique to the surface, the vergency produced on the pencil becomes changed, the primary and secondary focal points, V and H, separate […]
ref: 1863, The Civil Engineer and Architect's Journal:
text: A drillable robot is capable of placing its end link in any orientation in the pencil of planes containing its first link.
ref: 1987, R. E. Trahan, Applied Identification, Modelling and Simulation, page 107:
text: Let l and m be two hyperparallel lines. All the transversals to l and m that form congruent corresponding angles with l and m lie in a pencil.
ref: 2012, G. E. Martin, The Foundations of Geometry and the Non-Euclidean Plane, page 357:
topics: geometry
mathematics
sciences
glosses: A family of geometric objects with a common property, such as the set of lines that pass through a given point in a projective plane.
topics: medicine
sciences
glosses: A small medicated bougie.
examples: text: And most important of all, Cully now had 'The Pencil', that most coveted of Las Vegas powers.
ref: 1978, Mario Puzo, Fools Die:
topics: gambling
games
glosses: Ellipsis of power of the pencil.
Derived terms: automatic pencil
beard pencil
blue-pencil
blue pencil doctrine
bow pencil
carpenter pencil
carpenter's pencil
caustic pencil
china pencil
click pencil
clutch pencil
colored pencil
coloured pencil
coloring pencil
colouring pencil
color pencil
colour pencil
drafting pencil
eyebrow pencil
golf pencil
grease pencil
hair pencil
hot pencil
kohl pencil
lead in one's pencil
lead pencil
mechanical pencil
not the sharpest pencil in the box
number 2 pencil
pencilbeam
pencil-blue
pencil box
pencil case
pencil crayon
pencil cricket
pencil detonator
pencil dick
penciler
pencil fever
pencil fish
pencil flower
pencilful
pencil geek
pencil heel
pencil holder
pencil ladder
pencillate
pencil lead
pencilless
pencilliform
pencillike
pencilly
pencilmaker
pencilmaking
pencil moustache
pencil mustache
pencil neck
pencil-neck
pencil-necked
pencil parer
pencil pine
pencil pleat
pencil pointer
pencil-post bed
pencil pouch
pencil-pusher
pencil pusher
pencil pushing
pencil sharpener
pencil skirt
pencil-skirted
pencil squid
pencil stub
pencil test
pencil-thin
pencil topper
pencil tower
pencil tree
pencil whip
pencilwork
pen pencil
power of the pencil
propelling pencil
red-pencil
retractable pencil
slate pencil
styptic pencil
technical pencil
time pencil
wax pencil
№ 2 pencil