Noun: aisle
| Singular | aisle |
| Plural | aisles |
Sample Sentences
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Hester Earle and Violet Wayne were moving about the aisle with bundles of wheat-ears and streamers of ivy, for the harvest thanksgiving was shortly to be celebrated, while the vicar stood waiting for their directions on the chancel steps with a great handful of crimson gladioli. [1907 January, Harold Bindloss, chapter 20, in The Dust of Conflict, 1st Canadian edition, Toronto, Ont.: McLeod & Allen, →OCLC:]
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In one of the aisles there was an elaborately carved confessional box and I recognised the village priest in his heavy mountain boots and black cassock as he entered it and drew the dark velvet curtains behind him. [1956, Delano Ames, chapter 13, in Crime out of Mind:]
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But the design of the '730s' wasn't just about the seating formation. The Metro-style walkthrough interior was chosen because it is much more spacious than the '323s', where the interconnecting doors between carriages, narrow central aisle, and cramped areas by the passenger doors had been deemed particularly constraining. [2025 April 16, Pip Dunn, “The future is orange....”, in RAIL, number 1033, page 53:]
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It is realised that the old Pullman standard sleeper, with its convertible "sections", each containing upper and lower berths, and with no greater privacy at night than the curtains drawn along both sides of a middle aisle, has had its day. [1944 November and December, “"Duplex Roomette" Sleeping Cars”, in Railway Magazine, page 324:]
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Do you want to seat window or aisle?
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You ask her if she loves you, she answers, "I do" / Your heart starts glowing inside / And then you will know she is just for you / While each step, draws you closer to the aisle [1957, The Five Satins, “To the Aisle”:]
Nouns inflected like aisle
soldier's woundwort,
Nicosian,
whopper,
greypate,
tactile sign language,
chronotrope,
Rosie Lee,
dissentient,
photoinactivator,
sulphonediimine,
coastal waterfall,
residuary devise,
bituminization,
nitrosonaphthol,
smṛiti,
geosphere,
backscreen,
mensuralist,
flocculate,
flocculant, etc. (List truncated at 20 nouns)
Etymology
1. From Middle English ele, from Anglo-Norman ele (“wing”) (Modern French aile), from Latin āla (whence English ala). Further from Latin axis (whence English axis, atelier). Via Proto-Indo-European *h₂eḱs- cognate with English axle, Ancient Greek ἄξων (áxōn) (whence English axo-, axon).
2. The modern pronunciation has been influenced by English isle, whence the obsolete form isle; the modern spelling reflects further modification of this form after modern French aile. See: Middle English Nouns '
ele', French Nouns '
aile', Latin Nouns '
āla', English Nouns '
ala', Latin Nouns '
axis', English Nouns '
axis', English Nouns '
axle', Ancient Greek Nouns '
ἄξων'.