Other forms: cells
A cell is the smallest living building block of every plant and animal. A blood cell, cell division, single-celled.
The human body has tens of trillions of them, all descended from one. Robert Hooke named them in 1665 because the boxes he saw in cork looked like the small rooms monks lived in. A cell is also a prison room, a battery unit, a square in a spreadsheet, and a small group in a larger organisation. Note cellular, which covers both biology and mobile phone networks.
1nouncellThe smallest living building block of plants and animals.
“The human body is made of billions of cells.”
2nounsmallA small room in a prison or monastery.
“The prisoner spent the night in a small cell with a hard bed.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
cell is a small unit or room.
Latin cella meant a small room or storeroom. Hooke borrowed the monk's cell for the biological one, so the prison cell and the blood cell are the same word twice.
Proto-Indo-European
*ḱel- (cover)
Old French
cel
Latin
cella — chamber, small room, compartment
Old English
cell
Middle English
celle
English, today
cell
From Middle English celle, selle, from Old English cell (attested in inflected forms), from Latin cella (“chamber, small room, compartment”), later reinforced by Old French cel, sele, Old French cele. Ultimately from Proto-Italic kelnā, from Proto-Indo-European ḱelneh₂, from Proto-Indo-European ḱel- (“to cover”). a doublet of cella and hall.thumb|A jail cell
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA