stencil
Americannoun
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stencils
plural
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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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stencils,
present (3rd person singular)
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stenciled,
past participle, past
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stencilled,
past participle, past (especially British)
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stenciling,
present participle
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stencilling
present participle (especially British)
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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
-
has been stencillingperfect progressive
Past
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stenciledsimple
-
stencilledsimple
-
had stenciledperfect
-
had stencilledperfect
-
was stencilingprogressive
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was stencillingprogressive
-
were stencilingprogressive
-
were stencillingprogressive
-
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
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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:
Banksy’s stencil works are with the murals on the fifth floor.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 8, 2026
Scientists identified a partial hand stencil surrounded by much younger paintings.
From Science Daily ● Mar. 22, 2026
A simple hand stencil found on a cave wall in Indonesia has been identified as the oldest known example of rock art on Earth.
From Science Daily ● Mar. 22, 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
So I phoned this in, and the woman who was going to cut the stencil asked me, “What did his wife say?”
From "Slaughterhouse-Five" by Kurt Vonnegut
Its photocopiers didn’t need awkward stencils to serve as the master copy.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 15, 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
The "Girl With Balloon" artwork is part of a series of paintings and stencils by the guerrilla artist.
From BBC ● Sep. 13, 2024
I wonder if they created drawings and stencils first, or if they just grabbed their cans of spray paint and improvised.
From "I Can Make This Promise" by Christine Day
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
Additional interventions include stenciled speed limits on the road, speed humps, red-light cameras, as well as partnerships with police and public health departments.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 29, 2026
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
His blazing red 1970 abstract “Middle Passage” — a phrase that defines the forced trans-Atlantic voyage — has faint maps of Africa and the Americas stenciled on the canvas.
From New York Times ● Feb. 7, 2024
The magazine was printed somewhere in Maine and full of stenciled poems and descriptive paragraphs separated from each other by asterisks.
From "The Bell Jar" by Sylvia Plath
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
Banksy rose to prominence after he began spray-painting his now-trademark stencilled designs around Bristol in the early 1990s.
From BBC ● Aug. 13, 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
Each cage was stencilled with the name and the brand of the bull-breeder.
From "The Sun Also Rises" by Ernest Hemingway
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
When he visits the wall that cordons off Palestinian areas of Jerusalem, he adds to its profusion of graffiti, stenciling onto it a Sumerian phrase cribbed from that Mesopotamian pillar.
From Washington Post ● Mar. 16, 2023
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
The team works on me until late afternoon, turning my skin to glowing satin, stenciling patterns on my arms, painting flame designs on my twenty perfect nails.
From "The Hunger Games" by Suzanne Collins
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
Early "straight" graffiti was abandoned for stencilling and clear, legible, instantly understandable sloganeering.
From The Guardian ● Jun. 1, 2012
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.
