Fill

How to spell fill

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce fill

What does fill mean?

1. verbTo make something full, or to occupy the whole of a space, time, or role.
2. nounAs much of something as one wants or can hold; a quantity that fills a space.

Fill in a sentence

• verb

  Please fill the kettle before you switch it on.

• noun

  After the buffet she had eaten her fill and could manage no more.

• verb

  They hired two staff to fill the empty positions.

• noun

  The builders dumped a load of fill into the trench.

Where does fill come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a native English word, descending from the Old English verb fyllan, which meant 'to make full' or 'to fill up'. It traces back to the same Proto-Germanic root that gave us the adjective 'full', and close relatives survive across the Germanic family, including German fullen and Dutch vullen. The connection to 'full' is the key to its spelling: just as 'full' carries a double L, so does 'fill', and the two words have always belonged together in meaning and form. Over the centuries the verb broadened from simply making something full to a wide range of senses, from filling a job vacancy to filling a tooth. The noun use, as in eating one's fill, also reaches back to early English and likewise keeps the doubled L.

How the word is built

• fill (from Old English fyllan, to make full; root related to 'full')