Pencil

How to spell pencil

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce pencil

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does pencil mean?

1. nounA thin instrument for writing or drawing, typically a stick of graphite encased in wood.
2. verbTo write, draw, or schedule something provisionally, often with a pencil.

Pencil in a sentence

• noun

  She sharpened a pencil before the exam began.

• verb

  Please pencil the meeting in for Thursday afternoon.

• noun

  He sketched the outline in pencil so the lines could be erased later.

• verb

  The editor asked her to pencil a few corrections in the margin.

Where does pencil come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word comes from the Latin penicillus, meaning 'little brush' or 'little tail', a diminutive of peniculus, itself a diminutive of penis, which in classical Latin simply meant 'tail'. Roman writers used a penicillus to describe the fine brush an artist dipped in pigment, so the earliest English sense was a small paintbrush rather than the graphite stick we know today. English took the word through Old French pincel during the 1300s, and for centuries a pencil was a delicate brush used for fine work. Only after deposits of graphite were discovered and encased in wood in the sixteenth century did the meaning settle on the writing implement. The unstressed second syllable is the spelling trap: it sounds like a weak schwa, so writers are tempted toward 'pencle' or 'pencel' rather than the correct -cil ending.

How the word is built

• penicill- (from Latin penicillus: little brush) reduced to penc-
• -il (forming the noun)