isle
Americannoun
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isles
plural
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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:
An Irish carpenter acquired the isle in Florida’s Lake Marion in the 1880s and built the main house by hand.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 6, 2026
Based in the British-owned isle of Jersey, CoinShares previously traded on Nasdaq Stockholm in Sweden.
From Barron's ● Apr. 2, 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
After checking he had not broken any bones, he hauled himself up and started heading in the direction of the Glen Rosa ferry terminal miles away, intending to travel off the isle.
From BBC ● Feb. 19, 2026
His third night on the isle lightened to a calm, pale sunrise.
From "A Wizard of Earthsea" by Ursula K. Le Guin
The contested isles are part of the volcanic Kuril archipelago, which runs in a broad arc from Russia's Kamchatka peninsula down to Japan's main northern island Hokkaido.
From Barron's ● Aug. 13, 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 two Central African countries have been arguing over the isles - Conga, Mbanié and Cocoteros - since the early 1970s.
From BBC ● May 19, 2025
The last thing that he remembered before he fell into deep dream was a glimpse of high white peaks, glimmering like floating isles above the clouds as they caught the light of the westering moon.
From "The Return of the King" by J.R.R. Tolkien
Here Rose and Magnolia Our dearest enshrine, The prayer of the south wind Is thine and is mine, For Child and for Mother Here sweetly twice isled, Brave Seamen are praying For Mother and Child.
From Memories of Canada and Scotland — Speeches and Verses by John Douglas Sutherland Campbell
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 Gordon Bottomley
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 Geraldine Bonner
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
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 Thomas Hardy
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.
