ceil

Pluralceils

Formsceils, ceiling, ceiled

1. 1
   nounabbreviation

   Abbreviation of ceiling.

   The spreadsheet applies ceil to round each value up to the nearest whole number.

   In the formula, ceil returns the smallest integer not less than the input.

   Note

   Of all the meanings of ceiling, only the mathematical one travels in this short form: the smallest integer greater than or equal to a given number. So ceil of 2.3 is 3, while ceil of 3 is simply 3, because a whole number is already its own ceiling. Negative numbers move toward zero. Ceil of −2.5 is −2, not −3, since the result is never less than the input.

2. 2
   verbtransitive

   To cover a wall or other surface with plaster, stucco, thin boards, or something similar as a lining or finish.

   The craftsmen ceil the chapel vault with ornate plasterwork.

   Carpenters ceiled the upper room with cedar panels before winter.

   Similarline, panel, plaster

   Note

   A builder's verb of uncertain origin, perhaps from Latin cēlō, "to hide". The idea suits a lining laid over rough boards or bare walls. W. E. B. Du Bois, in "Of the Quest of the Golden Fleece" (1903), pairs it with plastering: a cabin "neither plastered nor ceiled." Its present participle is spelled ceiling. "Ceiling the room" is the work in progress, and a ceiling is the finished surface overhead.

3. 3
   verbtransitive

   To set an upper limit, or maximum bound, on a value.

   The function ceils every result at one hundred.

   Administrators chose to ceil memory usage for each process.

   Similarcap, limit

   Note

   Mathematical shorthand put to work as a verb: to ceil a quantity is to cap it from above. It is easy to confuse with the ceiling function, which rounds a number up to the next integer. Ceiling a value rounds nothing; it only holds the value beneath a bound. Its forms ceils and ceiled are spelled exactly like those of the plastering verb, so context decides which is meant.

4. 4
   nounliterarycountable

   The overhead interior surface of a room; a poetic or literary term for a ceiling.

   Moonlight fell through the high windows onto the chapel's vaulted ceil.

   The poet described the night sky as heaven's vast ceil.

   Similarroof

   Note

   A clipped form of ceiling that belongs to verse. Its spelling was shaped by French ciel, and poets make the most of that echo. Ambrose E. Pratt, writing in 1890, turns the sky itself into "an azure ceil" above a carpet of mossy sward. In ordinary prose it reads as deliberate ornament. For the overhead surface of an actual room, ceiling remains the everyday word.

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