ceiling
noun
Simple meaning
The overhead closure of a room.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
seelingSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈsilɪŋ
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
The overhead closure of a room.
An upper limit on what is allowed
“He put a ceiling on the number of women who worked for him.”
architecture
The overhead upper surface of a covered space
The upper limit of an object or action.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- A2 · Elementary (estimated)
- Frequency
- Common
- Typical Use
- General English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: The overhead closure of a room.
Used this way, ceiling is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use ceiling
- “He hated painting the ceiling.”noun
- “He put a ceiling on the number of women who worked for him.”noun
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
The maximum borrowing power of a governmental entity.
A ceiling based on attitudinal or organizational bias in the work force that prevents minorities and women from advancing to leadership positions.
Get very angry and fly into a rage.
A limit set by Congress beyond which the national debt cannot rise.
The maximum altitude at which an airplane can maintain horizontal flight.
Altitude above which a plane cannot climb faster than a given rate.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.