▪ I. sill, n.1
(sɪl)
Forms: α. 1 syl, 1, 5–6 syll(e, 2, 4 sulle, 4, 7 sille; 6 Sc. schyll, 7, 9 sil, 7– sill, 9 cill. β. 5 selle, 7–9 sell; 5 celle, 8–9 cell.
[OE. syll and sylle, = MDu. sulle, MLG. sulle, sul (LG. süll), related to MDu. sille, zille (Fris. sille), MLG. sille (LG. sill), and to ON. and Norw. svill, syll (mod.Icel. sylla), MSw. and Sw. syll (dial. svill), Da. syld, also OHG. swelli, swella (MHG. swelle, G. schwelle). The precise relationship of these types to each other, and to Goth. gasuljan to found, or to L. solea the foundation of a wattled wall (Festus), is not clear.]
1. a. A strong horizontal timber (occas. a stone or iron substitute for this) serving as the foundation of a wall (esp. in the building of framed houses) or other structure, = groundsel n.2 1; hence, † a large beam or piece of squared timber. Also fig.
In ME. poetry sometimes used in the sense of ‘floor’.
| Beowulf 775 Þær fram sylle abeaᵹ medu-benc moniᵹ. c 897 K. ælfred Gregory's Past. C. i. 27 Ðonne hi ne beoð mid nanre sylle underscotene ðæs godcundlican mæᵹenes. c 1000 ælfric Hom. II. 144 Ða bæd he hi anre sylle, þæt he mihte þæt hus on ða sæ healfe mid þære underlecgan. 13.. Gaw. & Gr. Knt. 55 For al was þis fayre folk in her first age, on sille. c 1386 Chaucer Miller's T. 636 He fond nowthir to selle, Ne breed ne ale, til he com to the selle, Upon the floor. c 1400 Rowland & O. 9 Of doghety men I schall ȝow telle, Þat were full..Semely appon Sille. c 1440 Promp. Parv. 456/1 Sylle, of an howse, silla, soliva. c 1470 Henry Wallace ix. 830 Off hewyn temyr in haist he gert thaim tak Syllys off ayk, and a stark barres mak. 1513 Douglas æneid xi. ix. 70 Sum to the ȝettis weltis wechty stanis, And sum gret geistis and sillys for the nanis. 1536 Bellenden Cron. Scot. viii. xix. 58 Ambrose..brocht mony huge sillis & treis out of the nixt wod. 1651 Baxter Inf. Baptism 11 Every stone under the Sill supports not the house. 1710 J. Harris Lex. Techn. II, Sell, in Architecture, is the Term..for the lowest piece of Timber in a Timber-building. 1725 Fam. Dict. s.v. Bay, A cross Cell to hold in the side Cells from flying out. 1793 Smeaton Edystone L. §100 Three-inch planks..spiked down upon the ridge-tree and upon the sills on each side. 1838 Civil Eng. & Arch. Jrnl. I. 387/1 The sills upon the pier-piling of the Selby bridge are fixed as opportunities are presented at low water. 1861 Stephens & Burn Bk. Farm-buildings 375 The lining..should be carried over the sill and nailed to it; the sill being wider than the studding [etc.]. 1877 E. Peacock N.W. Linc. Gloss., Sill,..the bottom of a fixed bench, pew, or other like wooden erection. |
| attrib. c 1340 Nominale (Skeat) 449 Traches et trenchons, Sulle-trees and splentes. 1886 Willis & Clark Cambridge I. 330 The floor and sill wall of the upper study. Ibid. II. 14 The arches are fenced below by a low sill-wall. |
b. dial. and
U.S. One of the lower framing-timbers of a cart or railway-car.
| 1875 Knight Dict. Mech. 457/2 The bodies consisting of sills, to which the journal-boxes were bolted. 1879 G. F. Jackson Shropsh. Word-bk., Sills, the bottom and side pieces which form the skeleton-frame of the body of a cart or waggon—the foundation of its superstructure. |
c. The lower horizontal members of the frame of a motor vehicle.
| 1959 Motor Man. (ed. 36) i. 17 In the case of the Austin, a normal pressed-steel body was used, the channel-section sills of which were joined to the open faces of the channel section side-members to form substantial box sections. 1976 Drive Sept.–Oct. 75/1 The high boxed sills were a necessary structural link between the front and rear of the car. 1980 Daily Tel. 11 Sept. 7 (Advt.), Full underbody sealing and wax injection of sills and cross-members. |
2. a. The piece of wood- or stone-work forming the lower horizontal part of a window-opening.
Cf. window-sill.
| 1428 in Heath Grocers' Comp. (1869) 6 Unwroughte Stapylton stoone; reidy hewe for the saame for wyndowes, wyndow Iambes and sills. 1663 Gerbier Counsel 29 The head of the Windowes, as well as the..James, and Sils. 1815 J. Smith Panorama Sci. & Art I. 252 The sills of windows have been mostly made from three feet to three feet six inches distant from the level of the floor. 1851 Turner Dom. Archit I. ii. 37 A recess in the sill with a seat in each side, the usual characteristic of a domestic window. 1873 W. Black Pr. Thule xviii. 297 She..placed the plate outside the open window, on the sill. |
| fig. 1858 Kingsley Longbeard's Saga 80 High in Valhalla A window stands open; Its sill is the snow-peaks. |
| Comb. 1885 C. M. Yonge Nuttie's Father I. i. 6 Lovely sill boxes full of flowers in the windows. 1895 Funk's Stand. Dict., Sill-course, a course of masonry in line with a window-sill. 1955 Archit. Rev. CXVIII. 126/1 Panels of woven cane hanging from the sillboards cover the radiators. |
b. Naut. A port-sill (see
quots. and
port n.3 6).
| 1815 Burney Falconer's Mar. Dict., Sills of the Ports, or Port-sills.., pieces of oak timber, let in horizontally between the frames to form the upper and lower sides of the ports. 1841 Dana Seaman's Man. 123 Sills, pieces of timber put in horizontally between the frames to form and secure any opening; as, for ports. 1867 Smyth Sailor's Word-bk. 626. |
c. Fortif. (See
quots.)
| 1859 F. A. Griffiths Artil. Man. (1862) 248 The sill is the front of the sole. 1875 Knight Dict. Mech. 2182/2 Sill.., the inner edge of the bottom or sole of an embrasure. |
3. a. The threshold of a door or gateway; the lower horizontal part of a door-case.
Cf. door-sill and
groundsel n.2 2. Also
Comb.| 1591 Sylvester Du Bartas i. i. 845 Travailers..Make haste enough, if only the First Day From their owne Sill they set but on their way. 1600 Holland Livy 1359 The lintell, cheekes and sill of the Capitoll dore, were made all of brasse. 1621 Burton Anat. Mel. iii. ii. i. ii. (1651) 445 When he can scarce lift his leg over a sill. 1716 Swift Progr. Poetry Wks. 1751 VII. 170 The Farmer's Goose..Grown fat with Corn..Can scarce get o'er the Barn-Door Sill. 1787 Grose Prov. Gloss., Sill (of a door), threshold. 1823 P. Nicholson Pract. Builder 310 Cills—These belong to the apertures of the doors and windows, at the bottom of which they are fixed. a 1850 Rossetti Dante & Circle i. (1874) 173 O Poverty!..he who on thy naked sill has stood [etc.]. 1906 Expositor Aug. 131 He laid bare an ancient gateway with four sills, one above the other. |
| Comb. 1870 Jrnl. Ethnological Soc. II. 417 At each end of this passage, and at right angles to it, are two square or somewhat oblong chambers. The first..was about 3 feet in width. Where it joined the central passage was a sillstone. 1981 Glasgow Archaeol. Jrnl. VIII. 52/2 The main uprights were set in newly dug postholes, linked by sillbeam trenches. |
| transf. 1611 Cotgr., Sursueil, the vpper sill, or head⁓peece of a doore; the peece of timber that lyes ouer a doore. |
b. Mining. (See
quots.)
| 1747 Hooson Miner's Dict. S iv, When Doorsteds are used, and the Sole of the Drift so soft, that it will not bear the Forks,..then we clap a Sill under them, which is a piece of Wood lay'd across the Drift. 1881 Raymond Mining Gloss., Sill,..a piece of wood laid across a drift to constitute a frame with the posts and to carry the track of the tramway. |
c. A horizontal timber (or structure) at the bottom of the entrance to a dock or canal-lock, against which the gates close.
| 1789 Trans. Soc. Arts 55 To raise the sill or threshold of the flood-gates..twenty inches. 1838 Simms Publ. Wks. Gt. Brit. ii. 6 The gates clap against a sill of oak. 1861 Smiles Engineers II. 161 The bottom of ‘the Deeps’..was only two feet, six inches above the cill of Maud Foster Sluice. 1892 Law Times Rep. LXV. 590/1 The lock had been lengthened since its original construction, but an old sill had been left. |
d. A horizontal timber, etc., rising above the level of a roadway.
| 1853 Sir H. Douglas Milit. Bridges 318 The whole is easily moved forward to the edge of the gap, where a high sill should be laid, to prevent the wheels from approaching too near. |
e. A high ridge on the sea bed that effectively separates the bodies of water on either side.
| 1933 Geogr. Jrnl. LXXXI. 571 Hamish island, situated on the shallow sill of the Red Sea. 1942 O. D. von Engeln Geomorphol. xix. 468 They [sc. fiords] are closed at the seaward end by a distinct rock sill at shallow depth, beyond which the descent to the deeper ocean waters begins. 1978 Nature 14 Dec. 680/2 Outflowing Mediterranean subsurface waters... They spill over the sill at Gibraltar (330 m). |
4. a. A kind of clay found in coal-measures. Also
attrib., as
sill-coal,
sill-pencil.
| 1774 Phil. Trans. LXIV. 491 A shining kind of stony clay, called by the miners sill, lying in large beds in coal grounds. 1841 Hartshorne Salop. Ant. Gloss., Sill-coal, coal which my informant describes as being found ‘in the clunches’. 1899 Dickinson & Prevost Cumbld. Gloss., Sill, the soft clay of the coal measures, used for slate pencils, which are called sill pencils. |
b. A bed, layer, or stratum of rock,
esp. of an intrusive igneous rock. In
mod. use, a tabular igneous intrusion lying parallel to the surrounding strata.
| 1794 Hutchinson Hist. Cumb. I. [49]/1 Great sill red, near the bottom is alabaster, gypsum alabastrum. 1821 W. Forster Strata 95 Slate Sills. These Strata are of a Siliceous kind, and frequently contain small particles of mica. 1880 Geol. Mag. 433 The ‘Slate Sills’ and the ‘Coal Sills’ are particular beds of sandstone in the Yoredale Series. 1894 Naturalist 222 Intrusive igneous rocks in sills and dykes in all the Silurians. 1914 J. P. Iddings Problem of Volcanism vii. 222 Intrusions along bedding planes of stratified rocks are commonly called sills at whatever angle they may be tilted, and intrusions in fractures that transgress stratified beds are usually classed as dikes. 1977 A. Hallam Planet Earth 68 Fine examples of sills are the Carboniferous dolerite sill that forms Salisbury Crags in Edinburgh, Scotland, and the Palisades sill, up to 350m (1000ft) thick, along the west bank of the Hudson River near New York. |
| attrib. 1877 Raymond Statist. Mines & Mining 159 The east drift, same level, on the sill-floor, has attained a length of 92 feet. |
5. a. The foot or lower part
of a title-page or title.
| 1834 Lowndes Bibliogr. Man. I. 426 On the sell of the compartment of the title-page is the date of 1534. 1881 Bradshaw in Bibliographer Dec. 10/2 The sill of the text-title contains the device of Martin de Keyser, while the sill of the general title contains a blank shield. |
b. (See
quots.)
| 1877 E. Peacock N.W. Linc. Gloss., Sill.., the bottom part of a plough which slips along the ground in ploughing. 1895 W. Rye E. Angl. Gloss., Sill Iron, the iron which connects the plough with the standards, jigs, or carriage, of a Norfolk plough. |
c. The bottom
of a hedge.
| 1883 Daily News 1 Sept. 4/7 Although the hen prefers the sill of a hedgerow for her rough nest, she not unfrequently makes it in a cornfield. |
▪ II. sill, n.2 Dial. var. of
thill. Also
attrib.| 1787 Grose Prov. Gloss., Sills (of a waggon), the shafts, the same as thills. 1788– in northern dial. glossaries. 1828 Carr Craven Gloss., Sill-horse, the shaft horse. 1877 E. Peacock N.W. Linc. Gloss., Sill-hank, the hooks in the shafts of a cart or waggon for the shaft-horse to pull by. |
▪ III. sill, v. rare.
[f. sill n.1] trans. To furnish with a sill. Also
fig.| 1552–3 Inv. Ch. Goods Stafford 48 Ther was one bucket of brasse solde by the wardens, Thomas Yate & Thomas Yomans, to sylle ther church gate. 1908 Academy 11 July 29/2 Beneath your windows, deeply silled In red, red roses. |
▪ IV. sill obs. f. seal n.;
obs. var. sel, northern
f. self;
obs. f. sell v.;
var. sile (herring-fry).