easel

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“
The dark thing huddled at the foot of the easel was the painter's dead body.

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Definitions (8)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (2)

  1. noun An upright frame for displaying or supporting something, such as an artist's canvas.
  2. Word History
    "A painter's ass” is not a phrase that immediately brings to mind an accessory to the artist's profession. But easel comes to us from the Dutch word ezel, meaning "ass, donkey.” The Dutch word was eventually extended to mean "an upright frame for displaying or supporting something,” in the same way that the English word horse has come to mean "a piece of gymnastic equipment with an upholstered body.” Developments such as these illustrate the playfulness or wit that speakers often bring to language, here applying the name for one object to another with similar properties.

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Examples (50)

  • Next to the easel was a small table, on which stood a box full of tubes of paint. —  Maigret and the Apparition - Episode 90 - Georges Simenon
  • The painting of the girl on the easel was arranged like a roller blind, and it rolled up or down. —  Smoke and Mirrors, by Neil Gaiman.
  • MGM Mirage considers ways about those die instnat training to learn not a rolling vertical easel is any online casino of two of its each witb camera during computer to join in.
  • Even though they don't describe much beyond perhaps suggesting an easel, they serve to balance the composition. —  American Artist
  • Now, her love of beauty and form has moved from a traditional canvas mounted on an easel -- to plots of land.
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Etymologies (3)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Dutch ezel, ass, from Middle Dutch esel, from Latin asellus, diminutive of asinus.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (2)

  1. from Dutch ezel = German esel, an easel, literally an ass, = Anglo-Saxon esol, an ass: see ass. For the particular meaning, ‘a support,’ cf. clotheshorse, saw-horse, saw-buck, French chevalet, Spanish caballete, Portuguese cavallete de pintor, Italian cavalletto, an easel, clothes-horse, etc.
  2. Scots, also written eassel, eastle, eastilt, apparently variations of eastlin, *eastling, adverb, easterly: see eastling. For the form, cf. deasil.
 

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/ˈisl/
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