easel
pronunciation
How to pronounce easel in British English:
UK [ˈi:zl]
How to pronounce easel in American English:
US [ˈizəl]
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- Noun:
- an upright tripod for displaying something (usually an artist's canvas)
Word Origin
- easel
- easel: [17] Easel was borrowed from Dutch ezel, which means literally ‘donkey’ (it is related to English ass). The notion of loading a painting on to a stand, much as a burden is loaded on to a donkey, is echoed in the use of clotheshorse for a stand for hanging clothes on to dry or air.=> ass
- easel (n.)
- 1590s, from Dutch ezel "easel," originally "ass," from Middle Dutch esel, from Latin asinus "ass" (see ass (n.1)); the comparison being of loading a burden on a donkey and propping up a painting or canvas on a wooden stand (compare sawhorse, French chevalet, Italian cavalletto).
Example
- 1. His studio was a smallish upstairs bedroom ; it didn 't even have an easel .
- 2. Just stepping away from the easel was enough to get me to relax , and what I saw before me was genius .
- 3. Call mozart or picasso prodigies if you like but they spent more hours at the piano and the easel than their competitors did .
- 4. Neither have I caught them knitting or daubing oil paints on to an easel , though that may be partly because hardly anyone does such things at home either .
- 5. Lots of houses here are abandoned and one of them became andrey 's sculpture studio . There he has an easel , floodlight , clay .