isle
Americannoun
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a small island.
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any island.
verb (used with object)
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to make into or as if into an isle.
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to place on or as if on an isle.
noun
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of isle
1250–1300; Middle English i ( s ) le < Old French < Latin īnsula
Explanation
An isle is a small island. The Isle of Capri, off the coast of Italy, is one of the most famous isles in the world. There is no clear agreement on what makes an island an isle. Some people say it's simply a matter of taste: isle sounds more poetic and romantic. Actually, there's no precise definition of island either, other than it's a piece of land surrounded by water and smaller than a continent. A good way to remember that an isle is a small island is that the word isle is smaller than island: this is a little word for a little thing.
Vocabulary lists containing isle
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
She first flew from San Francisco to Tahiti and then onwards to the isle of Mangareva in outer French Polynesia.
From Barron's ● May 15, 2026
The 24-hour guard-gated island is home to fewer than 50 single-family homes—which occupy about three quarters of the isle, while the rest is home to a few condo buildings and hotels.
From MarketWatch ● Mar. 16, 2026
Like Santorini, Milos is a volcanic isle that is home to one of Greece's most unique beaches, Sarakiniko.
From Barron's ● Feb. 12, 2026
Directed by Dean DuBlois, it tells the story of how a human and dragon befriend each other, breaking generations of conflict between dragons and Vikings on the fictional isle of Berk.
From BBC ● May 7, 2025
This isle was Iffish, where his friend Vetch had been born.
From "A Wizard of Earthsea" by Ursula K. Le Guin
But a string of helpers from the animal kingdom, including eagles, a hedgehog, a red squirrel and a flock of geese, were seen delivering the letter down the British isles.
From BBC ● May 8, 2026
Searching out the echoes of the Celtic foundation, Mr. Robb expresses the current mood of the isles and Western Europe more broadly.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 23, 2026
At the very least, it has gorgeous shots of the sun-soaked Greek isles.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 31, 2025
The initiative also encouraged greater community involvement in the running of the isles.
From BBC ● Jan. 26, 2025
It makes the floating isles wobble in the air.
From "Warcross" by Marie Lu
Tho’ all men else their nobler dreams forget, Confused by brainless mobs and lawless Powers; Thank Him who isled us here, and roughly set His Briton in blown seas and storming showers...
From Tennyson and His Friends by Various
You are isled from accustomed cares and worries -- you are set in a peculiar nook of rest.
From Pagan Papers by Grahame, Kenneth
For three days the heavens descended in a downpour that made the river a roaring torrent and isled the two log houses on their hillocks.
From The Emigrant Trail by Bonner, Geraldine
What days could ever be so long As those our pristine Summers poised O'er a charmed valley isled among Their bright slow-breaking tides unnoised?
From King Lear's Wife; The Crier by Night; The Riding to Lithend; Midsummer-Eve; Laodice and Dana? by Bottomley, Gordon
The aspect of the windows is nearly south, and the prospect includes the plain of the Marchfeld, with the isled Danube and Lobau in the extreme distance.
From The Dynasts by Hardy, Thomas
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
