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windowsill

UK/ˈwɪndəʊˌsɪl/US/ˈwɪndoʊˌsɪl/
nounB1+Occasional — familiar, but not everyday · #9,815 of 15,258leans spoken

Other forms: windowsills

A windowsill is the little ledge at the bottom of a window. Where the plants sit and the cat watches the road.

The outside version throws rainwater clear of the wall, which is its actual purpose, and the inside version has become a shelf by accident. Deep ones in old houses with thick walls make a seat. The word is written as one word or two, and sill alone is what a builder says. Cats, herbs and unopened post are the three things most reliably found on one.

Pearson Scott Foresman · Public domain

Definitions of windowsill

  1. 1nounwindowsillThe ledge at the bottom of a window.B1+

    “There were three pots of basil on the windowsill.”

Also accepted in games: sill, window sill

Where it comes from

From window + sill.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Around the House, A Man Called Ove

First appears in chapter 6 of A Man Called Ove.

Practise this word

windowsill in the wild

  • A windowsill (also written window sill or window-sill, and less frequently in British English, cill) is the horizontal structure or surface at the bottom of a window.

    Windowsill

  • The exterior portion of a windowsill provides a mechanism for shedding rainwater away from the wall at the window opening.

    Windowsill

  • The bomb was hidden in a flower pot and placed on the windowsill near them.

    Laurent Tailhade

  • At the front there are two sash windows on the ground floor and three on the first, each with a stone windowsill and hood mould.

    1 Vicarage Road

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.