Cellar

How to spell cellar

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce cellar

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does cellar mean?

1. nounA room below ground level in a building, typically used for storage.

Cellar in a sentence

• The old house had a damp cellar full of dusty boxes.

• They kept the vintage wine in a cool cellar beneath the kitchen.

Where does cellar come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin cellarium, meaning 'a storeroom for food', which was built on cella, a small room, chamber, or storehouse where supplies were kept. The same cella also lies behind the modern word 'cell', so the underground room and the prison cell are distant cousins. English took the word in through Anglo-Norman French as 'celer' in the 1200s, originally describing any storeroom or pantry before it settled into its familiar meaning of a room beneath a building, often used for keeping wine or coal cool. The spelling ended its journey with -ar rather than the more common -er ending, which is precisely the trap, since the word sounds identical to its homophone 'seller', someone who sells. Remembering the Latin cella, the little chamber, helps fix the soft c at the front and the -ar at the end.

How the word is built

• cell- (from cella: storeroom, chamber)
• -ar (noun suffix)

Words that sound like cellar

They sound the same but mean different things, so the meaning decides which spelling to write.

• seller: A person or business that offers goods or property for sale.