Pencil Meaning
/ˈpɛnsəl/Definition, CEFR level A1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
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Definition
nounA paintbrush.
nounA writing utensil with a graphite (commonly referred to as lead) shaft, usually blended with clay, clad in wood, and sharpened to a taper.
Sentence Examples
You dropped your pencil.
You nearly poked me in the eye with your pencil.
I'll get a pencil and paper.
CEFR Practice Quiz
She used a sharp ____ to write down the teacher's important notes.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The architect sketched the initial design in ____ before transferring it to the computer.
Word Origin & History
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.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"But living art may not least part expresse, / Nor life-resembling pencill it can paynt[…]."
— 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Prologue”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, page 389:
"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?"
— 1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 17, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes […], book II, London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], →OCLC:
"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."
— 1791, James Boswell, Life of Johnson, Oxford, published 2008, page 1390:
"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 […]"
— 1863, The Civil Engineer and Architect's Journal:
"A drillable robot is capable of placing its end link in any orientation in the pencil of planes containing its first link."
— 1987, R. E. Trahan, Applied Identification, Modelling and Simulation, page 107:
Explore More A1 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
She used a sharp ____ to write down the teacher's important notes.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The architect sketched the initial design in ____ before transferring it to the computer.