cell

Meaning

Noun

1. A single-room dwelling for a hermit.
2. (historical) A small monastery or nunnery dependent on a larger religious establishment.
3. A small room in a monastery or nunnery accommodating one person.
4. A room in a prison or jail for one or more inmates.
5. Each of the small hexagonal compartments in a honeycomb.
6. Any of various chambers in a tissue or organism having specific functions.
7. The discal cell of the wing of a lepidopteran insect.
8. (obsolete) Specifically, any of the supposed compartments of the brain, formerly thought to be the source of specific mental capacities, knowledge, or memories.
9. A section or compartment of a larger structure.
10. (literary, obsolete) Any small dwelling; a remote nook, a den.
11. A device which stores electrical power; used either singly or together in batteries; the basic unit of a battery.
12. The basic unit of a living organism, consisting of a quantity of protoplasm surrounded by a cell membrane, which is able to synthesize proteins and replicate itself.
13. A small thunderstorm, caused by convection, that forms ahead of a storm front.
14. The minimal unit of a cellular automaton that can change state and has an associated behavior.
15. In FreeCell-type games, a space where one card can be placed.
16. A small group of people forming part of a larger organization, often an outlawed one.
17. A short, fixed-length packet, as in asynchronous transfer mode.
18. A region of radio reception that is a part of a larger radio network.
19. A three-dimensional facet of a polytope.
20. The unit in a statistical array (a spreadsheet, for example) where a row and a column intersect.
21. The space between the ribs of a vaulted roof.
22. A cella.
23. An area of an insect wing bounded by veins.

Verb

To place or enclose in a cell.

Synonyms

prison

jail

prison cell

chamber

battery

🔋

unit

cell phone

mobile phone

📱

cellule

dungeon

cubicle

cellular phone

element

corpuscle

pile

ward

electric cell

lock up

cellphone

gaol

cadre

honeycomb

battery cell

jail cell

hermitage

hold

cellula

room

section

celly

cellular telephone

mobile telephone

cellular

location

lock-up

penitentiary

cavern

core

cooler

carton

biological

component

compartment

clove

hovel

closet

bugbear

apartment

hut

🛖

hole

🕳️

Translations

cellule

cel

Zelle

célula

cellula

célula

celda

cella

κύτταρο

cela

calabós

κελί

carcer

Pronounced as (IPA)

/sɛl/

Etymology

Inherited from Middle English: celle

Inherited from Old English: cell

In summary

From Middle English celle, selle, from Old English cell (attested in inflected forms), from Latin cella (“chamber, small room, compartment”), later reinforced by Old French cel, sele, Old French cele. Ultimately from Proto-Italic *kelnā, from Proto-Indo-European *ḱelneh₂, from Proto-Indo-European *ḱel- (“to cover”). Doublet of cella and hall.