isle
Pluralisles
Often confused with aisle
- 1An island, usually a very small one.
Gulls nested on a rocky isle a few hundred yards offshore.
Every summer the family takes the ferry to a quiet isle off the coast of Maine.
Note
The resemblance to island is an accident of spelling. This word came through Old French from Latin insula, and in Middle English it was plainly ile or yle; the silent s was slipped in later, much as it was in island, which is a different word altogether. The two now divide the work by size: an island can be any size, while this one leans small, and for the smallest of all there is islet.
- 2Obsolete spelling of aisle.
Note
Older texts sometimes lead a bride up the isle or seat a congregation on either side of it, because writers once used this spelling for aisle. It has long dropped out of use: today isle names only an island, and written for a church, store or theater aisle it reads as a mistake rather than as old-fashioned.
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Origin
From Middle English ile, yle (the s was added later, as in island), borrowed from Old French ille, idle, isle, from Latin insula. Despite the look, it is not related to island; it is a doublet of insula.