Other forms: pencils
You write and draw with a pencil, and you can rub it out. A sharp pencil, pencil case, in pencil.
There is no lead in it: the core is graphite mixed with clay, and the proportion sets the grade from hard to soft. Writing in pencil is what you do when the answer may change. Note that the Latin behind the word means a little brush, since a pencil was once a fine paintbrush.
1nounpencilA writing tool with a graphite core.
“Write your answers in pencil so you can rub them out if you make a mistake.”
pencil is a writing tool.
Old French pincil comes from Latin penicillum, a little brush. A pencil was a fine paintbrush before it held graphite.
Old French
pincil
Latin
pēnicillum
Anglo-Norman
pincil
English, today
pencil
Built from
From Anglo-Norman pincil, from Latin pēnicillum. 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”). a doublet of penis. Not related to pen.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA