pencil
verb
- mark with a pencil
- write
noun
- writing implement
Wiktionary
Pronunciation: /ˈpɛnsəl/ / /ˈpɛntsəl/ / /ˈpɛnsɪl/
noun
Etymology: From Anglo-Norman and Old French pincil (see the variant pincel, which gave rise to Modern French pinceau (“paintbrush”)), from Latin pēnicillum, diminutive of pēniculus (“brush”), itself a diminutive of pēnis (“tail; penis”). Not related to pen.
- A paintbrush.
“But living art may not least part expresse, / Nor life-resembling pencill it can paynt[…].”
“why is it not lawfull for every man to pourtray himself with his pen, as it was for him to doe it with a pensell?”
- A writing utensil with a graphite (commonly referred to as lead) shaft, usually blended with clay, clad in wood, and sharpened to a taper.
- An aggregate or collection of rays of light, especially when diverging from, or converging to, a point.
- A family of geometric objects with a common property, such as the set of lines that pass through a given point in a projective plane.
“When, by the pencil becoming oblique to the surface, the vergency produced on the pencil becomes changed, the primary and secondary focal points, V and H, separate […]”
“A drillable robot is capable of placing its end link in any orientation in the pencil of planes containing its first link.”
- A small medicated bougie.
- A small, thin tuft of hairs or feathers.
“It is almost entirely of a slatey colour, with yellow bill and feet, but the feathers of the rump and upper tail-coverts each terminate in a rigid, glossy pencil or tuft of a vivid crimson.”
- Ellipsis of power of the pencil.
“And most important of all, Cully now had 'The Pencil', that most coveted of Las Vegas powers.”
verb
Etymology: From Anglo-Norman and Old French pincil (see the variant pincel, which gave rise to Modern French pinceau (“paintbrush”)), from Latin pēnicillum, diminutive of pēniculus (“brush”), itself a diminutive of pēnis (“tail; penis”). Not related to pen.
- To write (something) using a pencil.
“I penciled (BrE: pencilled) a brief reminder in my notebook.”
“She had hardly got back when she encountered a piece by Robert Trewe in the new number of her favourite magazine, which must have been written almost immediately before her visit to Solentsea, for it contained the very couplet she had seen pencilled on the wallpaper by the bed, and Mrs. Hooper had declared to be recent.”
- To mark with, or as if with, a pencil.
“It pencilled each flower with rich and variegated hues, and threw over its exuberant foliage a vesture of emerald green.”