ringlet

UK/ˈɹɪŋ.lət/US/ˈɹɪŋ.lət/

nounC1Very rare — outside the 30,000 commonest English words, so you will meet it in writing rather than in speech — ring sits at #435neutral

Other forms: ringlets

A ringlet is a long curl of hair. A spiral rather than a wave, hanging on its own.

The -let ending means small, and a ringlet is literally a little ring. They belong to portraits, to Victorian children and to a certain kind of doll, which is why the word carries a period flavour. Making them involves rags or heated tongs and a great deal of patience. The word is nearly always plural, and hair described as falling in ringlets is being admired.

Definitions of ringlet

1nounringletA long spiralling curl of hair.C1
“Her hair fell in ringlets to her shoulders.”

Where it comes from

Middle English
ryng
English
ring
English, today
ringlet

Built from

*(s)ker- · Proto-Indo-European — to turn, bend

From ring + let. Compare Middle English ryngyl, ryngyll, rengel (“ringlet”). ring comes from Middle English ryng. From Middle English ryng, from Old English hring (“ring, circle”), from Proto-West Germanic hring, from Proto-Germanic hringaz (“ring”), from Proto-Indo-European (s)krengʰ-, extended nasalized form of (s)ker- (“to turn, bend”). a doublet of rank and rink, as well as indirectly a doublet of range. 2

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Man Called Ove, A Song of Ice and Fire

First appears in chapter 27 of A Man Called Ove.

Practise this word

ringlet in the wild

The concept that Saturn's rings are made up of a series of tiny ringlets can be traced to Pierre-Simon Laplace.
Rings of Saturn
The ringlet (Aphantopus hyperantus) is a butterfly in the family Nymphalidae.
Ringlet
Coenonympha tullia, the large heath or common ringlet, is a butterfly in the family Nymphalidae.
Coenonympha tullia
The small mountain ringlet or mountain ringlet (Erebia epiphron) is a butterfly of the family Nymphalidae.
Small mountain ringlet
Loose ringlets can be created just by twisting wet hair as well.
Ringlet (haircut)

1 / 3

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.

Related words

ring

← Vocabulary