stencil
Americannoun
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a device for applying a pattern, design, words, etc., to a surface, consisting of a thin sheet of cardboard, metal, or other material from which figures or letters have been cut out, a coloring substance, ink, etc., being rubbed, brushed, or pressed over the sheet, passing through the perforations and onto the surface.
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the letters, designs, etc., produced on a surface by this method.
verb (used with object)
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to mark or paint (a surface) by means of a stencil.
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to produce (letters, figures, designs, etc.) by means of a stencil.
noun
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a device for applying a design, characters, etc, to a surface, consisting of a thin sheet of plastic, metal, cardboard, etc in which the design or characters have been cut so that ink or paint can be applied through the incisions onto the surface
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a decoration, design, or characters produced in this way
verb
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to mark (a surface) with a stencil
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to produce (characters or a design) with a stencil
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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stencilsimple
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stencilssimple
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have stenciledperfect
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have stencilledperfect
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has stenciledperfect
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has stencilledperfect
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am stencilingprogressive
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am stencillingprogressive
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are stencilingprogressive
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are stencillingprogressive
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is stencilingprogressive
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is stencillingprogressive
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have been stencilingperfect progressive
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have been stencillingperfect progressive
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has been stencilingperfect progressive
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has been stencillingperfect progressive
Past
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stenciledsimple
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stencilledsimple
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had stenciledperfect
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had stencilledperfect
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was stencilingprogressive
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was stencillingprogressive
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were stencilingprogressive
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were stencillingprogressive
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had been stencilingperfect progressive
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had been stencillingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of stencil
1375–1425; earlier stanesile, late Middle English stansele to ornament with diverse colors or spangles < Middle French estanceler, derivative of estencele a spark, ornamental spangle < Vulgar Latin *stincilla, metathetic variant of Latin scintilla scintilla
Explanation
A stencil is a stiff sheet of material with a design or image cut out of it. When you apply ink or paint to the stencil, the design is printed on the surface below. Number and letter stencils make it easier to paint your new boat's name on its hull or to put your address on your mailbox. Stencil can also be a verb. You might stencil glow-in-the-dark stars all over your bedroom ceiling. Stencil comes from the Middle English stencellen, "decorate with bright colors."
Vocabulary lists containing stencil
Merci Suárez Changes Gears
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Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
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Visual Arts - Introductory
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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:
The team noted that this hand stencil stands out as a unique variation of a common motif.
From Science Daily ● Mar. 22, 2026
The hand stencil dates back at least 67,800 years, making it the oldest reliably dated cave art ever found.
From Science Daily ● Mar. 22, 2026
A light source with a very tight wavelength, somewhere between ultraviolet light and X-rays, shines through a chip-shaped stencil and onto the silicon wafer.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 27, 2026
Extreme ultraviolet light is reflected off of a stencil that contains the pattern for billions of transistors.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 27, 2026
The mousy brown librarian has sent copies of the Tavernier and the Streeter and even—most remarkably— stencil duplicates of de Boodt’s 1604 Gemmarum et Lapidum Historia, written entirely in Latin.
From "All the Light We Cannot See" by Anthony Doerr
Its photocopiers didn’t need awkward stencils to serve as the master copy.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 15, 2025
She placed stencils of the tattoo on Althouse’s arm before they got started that morning, tweaking the tattoo size and its placement.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 3, 2025
A few of her picks include stencils for a fairy house, haunted house and a scaredy cat.
From Salon ● Oct. 30, 2025
On Friday, Musk shared two side-by-side A.I.-generated images of graffiti-style stencils: a smiling, handsome Kirk, and a cowering, dying Zarutska.
From Slate ● Sep. 12, 2025
Jamie is with her, too, and—surprise—she has almost the exact same bike, only hers is pale yellow and the stencils are paisley.
From "Merci Suárez Changes Gears" by Meg Medina
The artist known for spray-painting stenciled images of rats and protesters onto buildings around the world has also worked hard to remain anonymous.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 21, 2026
The original drawing of the monorail, stenciled by Gurr within three days of getting the assignment and colored by John Hench, hangs in Gurr’s living room.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 25, 2025
The next record in the archival files is his business card, crisp and rectangular with the words “The Baron Georg von Trapp” stenciled in the center.
From Slate ● Jan. 26, 2025
White carnations dotted every room and were stenciled on some walls, signifying a tradition after Sounders matches where players handed the flower out to fans.
From Seattle Times ● Feb. 13, 2024
He held the boy by the hand and they went along the rows of stenciled cartons.
From "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy
It took him a full day to broadcast the seed into the furrows, after which he folded away the burlap, barely noticing a stencilled word indicating where it had come from: Odessa.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 17, 2025
Since Monday, stencilled silhouette images of a goat, elephants, monkeys, a wolf, pelicans and a cat have popped up in various locations across London.
From BBC ● Aug. 11, 2024
A slogan stencilled in red onto the road in Hebrew, Arabic and English by the side of the road read: "Drawing the line."
From Reuters ● Mar. 16, 2023
Next to that is the stencilled face of Valerii Zaluzhnyi, the commander-in-chief of Ukraine’s armed forces, holding up two fingers in a V-for-victory gesture.
From Seattle Times ● Feb. 23, 2023
The boundaries of Ngoma’s Tropic Region were stencilled in dark, wide brown and swept about a gorgeous interior labelled “jungle” and “desert” and “here be Elephants and all Manner of Strange Beasts.”
From "I, Robot" by Isaac Asimov
The nanocryotron was created by using electron beam lithography, a kind of stenciling technique that uses a beam of electrons to remove a polymer film to expose a particular region of interest.
From Science Daily ● Mar. 11, 2024
The ministry also accused Russia of being behind the stenciling of Jewish stars last November on walls in Paris and its suburbs, causing alarm about the safety of France’s Jewish community, the largest in Europe.
From Seattle Times ● Feb. 12, 2024
Matteo Cunsolo, a baker in northern Italy, has been stenciling the word "peace" onto loaves of bread, and the money he makes from selling the baked good has gone toward charity, the Associated Press reports.
From Fox News ● Mar. 21, 2022
But the interior — illuminated with the natural light of more than 900 windows, boasting a 108-foot high rotunda, soaring archways, ornate Moorish-inspired stenciling — comes as a surprise.
From Washington Post ● Nov. 17, 2021
She had no lips at all and compensated this by stenciling on a large red, greasy mouth that now popped open in delight, now shut in sudden alarm.
From "The Martian Chronicles" by Ray Bradbury
Famed for his stencilling combining humour with graffiti, as well as his 2010 Academy award-nominated film Exit Through the Gift Shop, Banksy's identity has long remained a mystery.
From BBC ● Jun. 30, 2022
These include fixed drawing room seating with Art Nouveau glass panels, original light fittings and light switches, carved chimney pieces, servant bell pushes and much of the original stencilling to the hall and stairs.
From BBC ● Dec. 15, 2021
“That’s the beauty of it. They are making this modern world and still someone has laboured over stencilling over these thousands of dividers across Mumbai. It’s quite something.”
From The Guardian ● Apr. 9, 2019
For many years, Spero suffered from arthritis: hand-painting gave way to stencilling and home-made printing.
From The Guardian ● Mar. 2, 2011
The man who was stencilling the new ones and tossing them into a pile stopped.
From "The Sun Also Rises" by Ernest Hemingway
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.
