Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A part of a church divided laterally from the nave, transept, or choir by a row of columns.
- noun A passageway between rows of seats, as in an auditorium or an airplane.
- noun A passageway for inside traffic, as in a department store, warehouse, or supermarket.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun Properly, a lateral subdivision of a church, parallel to the nave, choir, or transept, from which it is divided by piers or columns, and often surmounted by a gallery.
- In heraldry, winged or having wings.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun A lateral division of a building, separated from the middle part, called the nave, by a row of columns or piers, which support the roof or an upper wall containing windows, called the clearstory wall.
- noun Improperly used also for the have; -- as in the phrases, a church with three
aisles , the middleaisle . - noun Also (perhaps from confusion with
alley ), a passage into which the pews of a church open.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun A
wing of a building, notably in a church separated from thenave proper bypiers . - noun A clear
path through rows ofseating . - noun A clear
corridor in asupermarket with shelves on both sides containing goods for sale. - noun Any
path through an otherwiseobstructed space .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun passageway between seating areas as in an auditorium or passenger vehicle or between areas of shelves of goods as in stores
- noun a long narrow passage (as in a cave or woods)
- noun part of a church divided laterally from the nave proper by rows of pillars or columns
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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It's not so much on the real rare, high-end comics or artwork but the bad economic news seems to be prompting a downturn in, as one of them put it, "the kind of merchandise that the guy across the aisle is also carrying."
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Either way it goes, any real patriot can see that both sides of the aisle is the problem Neo-Cons and Libs.
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The central "aisle" is devoted to "Olmec: Colossal Masterworks of Ancient Mexico," which in fact features masterworks from roughly 1400 to 400 BC, ranging from the massive stone portrait heads of rulers ...
Peter Clothier: Big Day at LACMA Peter Clothier 2010
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The central "aisle" is devoted to "Olmec: Colossal Masterworks of Ancient Mexico," which in fact features masterworks from roughly 1400 to 400 BC, ranging from the massive stone portrait heads of rulers ...
Peter Clothier: Big Day at LACMA Peter Clothier 2010
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The central "aisle" is devoted to "Olmec: Colossal Masterworks of Ancient Mexico," which in fact features masterworks from roughly 1400 to 400 BC, ranging from the massive stone portrait heads of rulers ...
Peter Clothier: Big Day at LACMA Peter Clothier 2010
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The central "aisle" is devoted to "Olmec: Colossal Masterworks of Ancient Mexico," which in fact features masterworks from roughly 1400 to 400 BC, ranging from the massive stone portrait heads of rulers ...
Peter Clothier: Big Day at LACMA Peter Clothier 2010
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The central "aisle" is devoted to "Olmec: Colossal Masterworks of Ancient Mexico," which in fact features masterworks from roughly 1400 to 400 BC, ranging from the massive stone portrait heads of rulers ...
Peter Clothier: Big Day at LACMA Peter Clothier 2010
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Or, glad that one side of the aisle is still trying to make this country work.
Matthew Yglesias » Medicare Modernization Act Passed By Majority Rule 2010
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In the blogosphere, the right side of the aisle is having a collective orgasm.
Archive 2009-01-01 2009
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A stroll down a supermarket aisle is enlivened by signs such as this one:
dario commented on the word aisle
homophone with isle
April 30, 2010
chained_bear commented on the word aisle
But not quite with I'll?
April 30, 2010
milosrdenstvi commented on the word aisle
Another pronunciation that is just unfair. See choir.
January 9, 2011
Dan337 commented on the word aisle
January 24, 2011
qroqqa commented on the word aisle
Today's aisle/isle distinction is recent, and aisle owes its silent S to isle. Although ultimately from Latin ala "wing", the church word was from about 1600 confused with or merged with isle, and often so spelt. Some time in the 1700s the hybrid spelling aisle came into use, and seems to have become established by about 1800.
In this same time period its use was extended from the side passages, the 'wings', to the central passage, the nave. Some complain that couples walking up the aisle are really walking up the nave, but the usage is long established now.
January 24, 2011