eyelet

UK/ˈaɪ.lət/US/ˈaɪ.lət/

nounB2Very rare — outside the 30,000 commonest English words, so you will meet it in writing rather than in speechToo rare in one of the two pools to compare — fewer than 20 uses in speech or in writing

Other forms: eyelets

An eyelet is a small reinforced hole for a lace to pass through. Punch an eyelet.

The metal ring is what stops the cloth tearing where the lace pulls. An eyelet in embroidery is a decorative hole worked with thread instead.

Definitions of eyelet

1nouneyeletA small reinforced hole for a lace to pass through.B2
“One eyelet had torn out and the boot would not hold.”

eyelet is a hole.

Where it comes from

Old French oillet, a little eye; the spelling was later pulled towards eye.

Old French
oillet
Middle English
oylet
English, today
eyelet

From Middle English oylet, from Old French oillet, equivalent to Old French oil (“eye”) + -et. Spelling and pronunciation were later on influenced by eye (which is distantly related to oil via Proto-Indo-European) as though suffixed with -let (a double diminutive also from -et).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Knitting & Sewing

Practise this word

eyelet in the wild

An intermediate form of construction uses terminal strips (sometimes called "tag boards"), eyelet boards or turret boards.
Point-to-point construction
A small grommet may also be called an eyelet, used for example on shoes, tarps and sails for lacing purposes.
Grommet
A Pennington clamp, also known as a Duval clamp, is a surgical clamp with a triangular eyelet.
Pennington clamp
A foerster clamp is a surgical clamp with a round eyelet.
Foerster clamp
Yarn-overs are also common in eyelet and lace knitting, since they produce stable holes in the fabric.
Yarn over

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

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