carrel

See also: Carrel

English

WOTD – 3 September 2025

Pronunciation

Etymology 1

A variant of carol (“small closet or enclosure”),[1] from Middle English carole (“round dance with singing; group of people dancing and singing in a circle; circular thing; braid, chain (?); stall for study or writing; writing table; etc.”)[2] (possibly referring to the fact that the item encloses or surrounds the person using it):[3] see further at carol.

Noun

carrel (plural carrels)

  1. (architecture, obsolete) Alternative spelling of carol (“a small closet or enclosure built against the inner side of a window of a monastery's cloister, to sit in for study”).
    • 1593 (date written), “The Cloister. The Northe Alley.”, in James Raine, editor, A Description or Breife Declaration of All the Ancient Monuments, Rites, and Customes Belonginge or Beinge within the Monastical Church of Durham before the Suppression. […] (The Publications of the Surtees Society; 15), London: J[ohn] B[owyer] Nichols and Son, […]; William Pickering, […]; Edinburgh: Laing and Forbes, published 1842, →OCLC, page 70:
      And in every wyndowe iij Pewes or Carrells, where every one of the old Monks had his carrell, severall by himselfe, that, when they had dyned, they dyd resorte to that place of Cloister and there studyed upon there books, every one in his carrell, all the after nonne, unto evensong tyme. […] All there pewes or carrells was all fynely wainscotted and verie close, all but the forepart which had carved wourke that gave light in at ther carrell doures of wainscott. And in every carrell was a deske to lye there bookes on.
    • [1822, Edward James Willson, compiler, “Carol, or Carrel”, in A Glossary of Technical Terms, Descriptive of Gothic Architecture: […], 3rd edition, London: […] J[ohn] Taylor, […]; J. Britton, […]; and A[ugustus] Pugin, […], →OCLC, pages 2–3:
      Carol, or Carrel. A little pew, or closet, in a cloister, to sit and read in. They were common in greater monasteries, as Duram, Gloucester, Kirkham in Yorkshire, &c.; and had their name from the carols, or sentences inscribed on the walls about them, which often were couplets in rhyme. [Carola, Low Latin.]
      The etymology mentioned in the text is doubtful.]
  3. (by extension) A cubicle or partitioned space for reading or studying, often in a library.
    He was busy writing his report in a small library carrel.
    • 1952, Vladimir Nabokov, chapter III, in Pnin, 1st Vintage International edition, New York, N.Y.: Vintage Books, published 1989, →ISBN, page 76:
      He then returned to his carrell for his own research.
    • 1995, Richard Powers, Galatea 2.2, New York, N.Y.: Farrar Straus Giroux, →ISBN, page 82:
      Ah, the library. I booked like a madman for the Master’s Comp. Nine months, up in a study carrel on deck eight.
    • 2011, David Bellos, “Global Flows: Center and Periphery in the Translation of Books”, in Is that a Fish in Your Ear?: Translation and the Meaning of Everything, London: Particular Books, Penguin Books, →ISBN, page 219:
      I sneaked a look at what the German student in the next carrel was reading. It was [Georg Wilhelm Friedrich] Hegel, too—but in English translation! Well, I thought to myself with relief, if even native speakers use the English translation as a guide to Hegel's thought …
Alternative forms
Translations

Etymology 2

Probably borrowed from Middle French carrelé (“type of fabric”), probably from carrelé (“having checks”), an adjective use of the past participle of carreler (“to pave; to tile”) (modern French carreler), from carrel + -er (suffix forming infinitives of first-conjugation verbs). Carrel is a variant of carreau (“square; tile”),[4] from Old French quarel (“square block of stone”), from Vulgar Latin *quadrellus, from Latin quadrus (“square”, adjective), probably from quattuor (“four”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *kʷetwóres (“four”)) + -us (suffix forming adjectives).

Noun

carrel (plural carrels)

  1. (obsolete) A type of fabric used in the 16th and 17th centuries.
Alternative forms

Etymology 3

Possibly a variant of quarrel.

Noun

carrel (plural carrels)

  1. (obsolete) Synonym of quarrel (“a square-headed arrow”).
Translations

References

  1. ^ “carrel, n.2”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, June 2024.
  2. ^ “carō̆le, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.
  3. ^ Compare “carrel, n.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
  4. ^ “carrel, n.1”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, September 2024.

Further reading

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