islet
/ˈaɪ.lət/ noun
Forms islets
- noun A small island. “There is an islet on the other side of this body of water.”
- noun (biology) An isolated piece of tissue that has a specific function.
Synonyms
Etymology
From Middle French islette. By surface analysis, is(le) + -let. Mostly displaced native Middle English eyt, eit and Middle English holm, holme (See eyot and holm for more).
Webster’s 1913
- noun A little island.
- noun A suffix indicating an act, a process, the result of an act or a process, a state; also, a characteristic (as a theory, doctrine, idiom, etc.); as, baptism, galvanism, organism, hypnotism, socialism, sensualism, Anglicism.
Etymology [OF. islette (cf. F. îlot), dim. of isle.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “islet”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details