Other forms: levels, leveled, levelled, leveling, levelling
A level is how high something stands on a scale: the water level in a reservoir, the noise level in a room, or A1 to C2 in a game like this one. You go up a level, you drop a level, you sit at the same level for a year and wonder why.
Level is also an adjective meaning flat and even — a level floor, level ground — and meaning equal: the scores are level, hold those two shelves level with each other. As a verb it flattens things, gently or not: level the soil, level a building. A level is the tool for that job as well, the one with a bubble in a tube of liquid that sits dead centre when the surface is true. Car parks and shopping centres have levels instead of floors, and games have levels you finish one at a time. Three phrases worth having: on the level means honest, a level playing field means nobody has an advantage, and do your level best means try as hard as you possibly can.
1nounlevelA position on a scale of amount, height, quality or ability.~88%
“The water level in the reservoir is lower than it was last year.”
2nounfloorA floor of a building, or a stage in a game.~4%
“The car is on level three, near the lift.”
3adjectivehigherFlat and even, with no part higher than another.~2%
“Check the shelf is level before you screw it in.”
4adjectiveequalEqual in height, score or position.~2%
“The two teams were level at half time.”
5verbknockTo make something flat, or to knock it flat.~2%
“They levelled the ground before laying the slabs.”
6nountoolA tool with a bubble in liquid, used to check that a surface is flat.~2%
“Put a level on it — that table rocks.”
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 24 sentences found in the wild and placed 24 of them on a sense — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
level is a position on a scale.
A level was once a small pair of scales. Latin libra meant a balance, and libella was the little one — the instrument that tells you whether a surface is true. Old French carried it in as livel, later turning it into nivel and niveau, and English took the earlier form and kept the l. The tool named the idea, and the idea spread out to floors, grades and water heights.
Latin
libella
Old French
livel
Middle English
level
English, today
level
Built from
From Middle English level, from Old French livel, from Latin libella. From Middle English level, from Old French livel, liveau, later nivel, niveau, from Latin libella (“a balance, a level”), diminutive of libra (“a balance, a level”); see libra, librate. a doublet of libella and niveau. The verb is from Middle English levelen, from the noun.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA