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What is "ceiling"

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ceiling
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
ceiling
noun
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
glass ceiling
▪ Goodhue shattered the glass ceiling as the first female publisher at Time Inc.
vaulted ceiling/roof etc
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADJECTIVE
beamed
▪ An old pub with beamed ceilings, smoke-blackened, and a log fire crackling and spitting inside a deep alcove.
▪ The dining room has a beamed ceiling and a wood-burning stove within a stone fireplace.
▪ It has been sympathetically modernised and restored whilst retaining beamed ceilings and open fires in the lounge bar and television lounge.
▪ The kitchen was a great echoing place, with high beamed ceilings and quarry stone floor.
▪ Beyond was a completely cylindrical room, its beamed ceiling some nine feet high.
high
▪ Clusters of tall, willowy bamboos rose out of ten pale-pink marble planters and almost touched the high triple-domed ceiling.
▪ Fluorescent lighting was now tucked up against the high ceilings, throwing down illumination too diffuse to satisfy.
▪ Into a different room now. High, high ceilings, like in a cathedral - dim, dusty, bare.
▪ It was a pleasant place, with high ceilings where fans swatted the air.
▪ High, high ceilings, like in a cathedral - dim, dusty, bare.
▪ I had expected something like the Central Y, with high ceilings, impressive stone pillars, and marbled stairs.
▪ In the interior of houses, high ceilings became the rule to keep rising hot air a comfortable distance from dwellers.
low
▪ A deep pelmet in a room with a low ceiling can have a heavy effect, increasing the problem.
▪ The fortieth floor had low ceilings, no windows, and the charm of an engine room.
▪ The main living rooms downstairs have low ceilings and are wood beamed.
▪ The room had roughly plastered walls and a low ceiling supported on enormous joists trimmed out of whole trees.
▪ They have a low, vaulted ceiling and damp, grimy walls which run with water when it rains.
▪ The interior was certainly unusual with its enclosed pews, low barrel ceiling, and tiny altar.
▪ Oak beams, low ceilings, roses round the door.
▪ Panelled from floor to cornice in walnut, it has the lowest ceiling of all the main rooms.
painted
▪ Although requiring modernisation the state rooms are still intact including their painted ceilings.
▪ On the top floor ahead of you, you may be able to see some painted ceilings of astrological subjects.
▪ Whilst a mirror can allow a clear view of a painted ceiling, it can none the less be disorientating and disquieting.
sloping
▪ On the top floor the bedrooms had pretty sloping ceilings and dormer windows peering out under eyelid gables.
▪ She did not go to the room with the twin beds but to the single room with the sloping ceiling.
▪ He raised his arm and touched the sloping ceiling above his head.
▪ Sloping solution: That awkward sloping ceiling normally presents a problem, but there is a solution in these Sliderobes fitted wardrobes.
▪ She stood in the doorway at the end of the corridor, looking into a small polygonal room with a sloping ceiling.
▪ He threw himself down on the huge old bed and stared at the sloping timber ceiling.
▪ It was small, with a sloping ceiling and a pair of windows set in deep embrasures.
▪ Top floor rooms may have a sloping ceiling.
vaulted
▪ The ground floor, now the cellar, has retained its original three rooms with vaulted ceilings.
▪ The ossuary inside the sanctuary is square with a vaulted ceiling.
▪ They have a low, vaulted ceiling and damp, grimy walls which run with water when it rains.
wooden
▪ The wooden beams and ceiling were crackling in the extreme heat.
■ NOUN
fan
▪ A ceiling fan can help ventilation but can also incorporate lighting and be decorative.
▪ It was pitch dark everywhere, and the whirr of the ceiling fan seemed to fill the silent bedroom.
▪ Christina entered the hallway and switched on the ceiling fan.
▪ Swimming pool Bar Lounge Restaurant All rooms have balcony, ceiling fan and private facilities.
glass
▪ We've got to recognise that many women in our organisation, for example, perceive a glass ceiling.
▪ The same folks who brought you mass layoffs and glass ceilings?
▪ Just as age factors can produce glass barriers, women experience glass ceilings.
▪ Steel columns support the vaulted, domed glass ceilings.
▪ In the games room, supported by slate and iron pillars, a tracery of iron girders held the low glass ceiling.
▪ The glass ceiling does not exist because they don't let it.
joist
▪ In most households, small areas of the ceiling joists within the roof void are often boarded over to provide storage space.
▪ The existing ceiling joists must also be fire-protected with an overlay of glass fibre insulation, and new joists installed.
▪ The ceiling joists sit on the top of this wall.
▪ In either case, you will have to find the ceiling joists and mark their positions on the wall.
plaster
▪ Tom had swept the room clean and had fixed a lamp to a hook on the white plaster ceiling.
▪ Inside the quality finishes include cherry wood panelling, decorative plaster ceilings and marble floors.
▪ As well as the painted decoration, the Eastons are fortunate in also having two good plaster ceilings.
rose
▪ Option 1 is to connect the supply cable as a spur to an existing loop-in ceiling rose or junction box.
▪ In loop-in wiring, the circuit cables go direct to the ceiling roses, and all the connections are made there.
■ VERB
fall
▪ Fragments of dried earth fell from the ceiling.
▪ I never knew she was going to fall through the bloody ceiling and get knocked soft.
▪ Nervously, he stepped into the room and walked around, crunching the broken plaster that had fallen from the crumbling ceiling.
▪ The lantern swung on the beam, the glasses jumped on the table, and bits of earth fell from the ceiling.
fix
▪ Her memories were indoor memories, fixed by ceilings and plastered white walls.
gaze
▪ Katherine lay on the bed which had become hers and gazed blankly at the ceiling.
▪ Robins slightly endeared herself to me by going a little pink and gazing at the ceiling.
▪ She gazed at the ceiling, feeling her heart beat and breathing slowing to normal, her body quietening.
▪ She gazed up at the ceiling with its painted blue flowers and wondered what Arnie was doing in Bradford.
▪ Maurin was gazing at the ceiling.
▪ But others looked as though they were desperately trying to find a way out, gazing to the ceiling deep in thought.
▪ The two women remained motionless, gazing up at the ceiling as if to trace the source and direction of the footsteps.
hang
▪ Benny found herself in a rock-walled tunnel, with bare bulbs hanging from the ceiling at regular intervals.
▪ Chamber 7e is dominated by a man-size iron cage which hangs from a ceiling hook.
▪ Most impressive, though, was what was hanging from the ceiling directly above the altar stone.
hit
▪ One tankard hit the ceiling, another broke a window.
▪ The turbulence was such that his head hit the ceiling and his headset came off and fell to the floor.
hung
▪ And snowflakes were huge beautiful things that were hung from the ceilings on bits of thread.
▪ Shirts and sheets they hung from the ceiling, draping them on lines and hangers.
▪ In the corner a rope hung down from the ceiling.
▪ Her elbows had been lashed together and she hung from the ceiling like a snared sparrow.
▪ Old tattered flags hung from the ceiling, their patterns long since faded into the air.
▪ Bunches of herbs and pot and saucepan racks can be hung from the ceiling.
▪ All the furniture in it hung from the ceiling by long mouldy ropes and did not quite touch the ground.
▪ Most, if not all, scenery is hung from the ceiling by the flies department.
impose
▪ These have to be settled, if necessary, by a process of reconciliation whereby the budget committees impose specific ceilings.
▪ Obviously the available time imposes an upper ceiling on this game, for there can be only one K per generation.
look
▪ They lie there a minute, looking up at the ceiling.
▪ He looked up at the ceiling.
▪ She was biting her lip and looking at the ceiling, as if willing herself awake.
▪ As she and Adam left, Buzz turned back to see Elinor silently looking at the ceiling.
▪ She pulled off her clothes and left them in a heap, then lay on top of the covers looking up at the ceiling.
▪ Instead, she looked up to the ceiling from where she got quite a lot of her inspiration.
▪ She was lying on her bed, looking up at the ceiling, Smudge and Whisky curled on her stomach.
▪ Urquhart looked to the ceiling in a gesture of comic despair.
paint
▪ Like Michelangelo we can paint the ceilings of the Sistine Chapels of the mind.
▪ For $ 190, you get nice suites with painted timber ceilings, breakfast included.
point
▪ Flex your feet so your toes are pointed to the ceiling.
▪ Then think of the knees pointing up to the ceiling.
raise
▪ Congress was frantically trying to complete a bill raising the federal debt ceiling in time for President Bush to sign today.
▪ He did not raise the ceiling on mortgage-interest relief, which Mrs Thatcher had pressed him to do.
▪ Many are reluctant to do so; they harbour hopes that the government will raise the 10% ceiling.
▪ I do not believe that the Commissioners justified their proposal to raise the ceiling.
reach
▪ They reach almost to the ceiling.
▪ The light of the lamp did not reach as far as the high ceiling, and the fire had burned low.
▪ The bedhead was florid and overblown, its shiny walnut carvings reaching almost to the ceiling.
▪ Do not stand on chairs to reach something at ceiling level.
set
▪ We know the MiG-2s already set a ceiling record of 120,000 feet.
▪ It has few exemptions, though it sets annual ceilings on how much individual patients pay.
▪ The regulations set a ceiling of 15 parts per billion.
▪ The Chancellor has set a ceiling of £250,000.
▪ So they risk losing most potential economic growth if a climate treaty sets ceilings on emissions.
▪ We will issue factories and power stations with licences setting a ceiling on permitted emissions of pollutants.
▪ It was a long windowless studio with neon strip-lighting set into the ceiling.
stare
▪ Her greenish eyes were wide open, staring sightless at the ceiling.
▪ Then you usually lie there just staring at the ceiling, thinking about everything that could go wrong.
▪ He was staring at the ceiling.
▪ Sara stared at her bedroom ceiling.
▪ Fulke slouched, staring up at the ceiling.
▪ He wandered off then came back to lie on his bed, staring up at the ceiling.
▪ Evelyn lay on her bed and stared at the ceiling.
▪ She lay on her back staring up at the ceiling and her thoughts immediately flashed back to Luke and last night.
suspend
▪ The light, a single bulb in an ethnic basket, was suspended from the ceiling and lit just the table.
▪ He gaped round the small room, realizing that he was suspended from a ceiling only fifteen feet high.
vault
▪ I have these dreams, too, and in them my bedroom is a light-filled suite with vaulted ceilings.
▪ The vaulted ceilings are hand painted.
PHRASES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
hit the roof/ceiling
▪ He hit the roof when the pair left to set up home in a bedsit.
▪ One tankard hit the ceiling, another broke a window.
▪ The shell hit the roof of the building and made a mess of the inside of the building.
▪ The turbulence was such that his head hit the ceiling and his headset came off and fell to the floor.
▪ Then, he proceeded to hit the ceiling.
▪ Top editors hit the roof Maybe one picture, but a page full of pictures of black women?
▪ Two shells hit the roof and one exploded in the corridor during the night.
▪ What would Old Chao do if he saw them, hit the roof on his way into outer space?
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ Congress was once again considering raising the federal debt ceiling.
▪ Import quotas may rise from the present ceiling of 18.5 million to 20 million.
▪ Millions of federal employees may not receive paychecks unless Congress raises the debt ceiling.
▪ There is a ceiling on the amount of foreign investment allowed in any company in the country.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ And heaped up in one corner, almost touching the ceiling, was a huge pile of junk.
▪ Benny found herself in a rock-walled tunnel, with bare bulbs hanging from the ceiling at regular intervals.
▪ But the tour revealed that the building has retained many treasures from its past: Its cathedral ceilings still have rounded corners.
▪ Genius is Michelangelo at work on the Sistine ceiling.
▪ The ossuary inside the sanctuary is square with a vaulted ceiling.
▪ The walls and ceilings were black, and the sole illumination was provided by black candles set in empty cat food cans.
▪ The wooden beams and ceiling were crackling in the extreme heat.
▪ Windows were shattered and ceilings cracked in several nearby towns.
Related phrases:
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Ceiling

Ceiling \Ceil"ing\, n. [See Cell, v. t.]

  1. (Arch.)

    1. The inside lining of a room overhead; the under side of the floor above; the upper surface opposite to the floor.

    2. The lining or finishing of any wall or other surface, with plaster, thin boards, etc.; also, the work when done.

  2. (Naut.) The inner planking of a vessel.

    Camp ceiling. See under Camp.

    Ceiling boards, Thin narrow boards used to ceil with.

Ceiling

Ceil \Ceil\ (s[=e]l), v. t. [imp. & p. p. Ceiled (s[=e]ld); p. pr. & vb. n. Ceiling.] [From an older noun, fr. F. ciel heaven, canopy, fr. L. caelum heaven, vault, arch, covering; cf. Gr. koi^los hollow.]

  1. To overlay or cover the inner side of the roof of; to furnish with a ceiling; as, to ceil a room.

    The greater house he ceiled with fir tree.
    --2 Chron. iii. 5

  2. To line or finish a surface, as of a wall, with plaster, stucco, thin boards, or the like.

Related phrases:
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
ceiling

mid-14c., celynge, "act of paneling a room," noun formed (with -ing) from Middle English verb ceil "put a cover or ceiling over," later "cover (walls) with wainscoting, panels, etc." (early 15c.); probably from Middle French celer "to conceal," also "cover with paneling" (12c.), from Latin celare (see cell). Probably influenced by Latin caelum "heaven, sky" (see celestial).\n

\nExtended to the paneling itself from late 14c. The meaning "top surface of a room" is attested by 1530s. Figurative sense "upper limit" is from 1934. Colloquial figurative phrase hit the ceiling "lose one's temper, get explosively angry" attested by 1908; earlier it meant "to fail" (by 1900, originally U.S. college slang). Glass ceiling in the figurative sense of "invisible barrier that prevents women from advancing" in management, etc., is attested from 1988.

Wiktionary
ceiling

n. The surface that bounds the upper limit of a room. vb. (present participle of ceil English)

Related phrases:
WordNet
ceiling

  1. n. the overhead upper surface of a room; "he hated painting the ceiling"

  2. (meteorology) altitude of the lowest layer of clouds

  3. an upper limit on what is allowed; "they established a cap for prices" [syn: cap]

  4. maximum altitude at which a plane can fly (under specified conditions)

Related phrases:
Wikipedia
Ceiling (aeronautics)

With respect to aircraft performance, a ceiling is the maximum density altitude an aircraft can reach under a set of conditions, as determined by its flight envelope.

Ceiling

A ceiling is an overhead interior surface that covers the upper limits of a room. It is not generally considered a structural element, but a finished surface concealing the underside of the roof structure or the floor of a storey above. Ceilings can be decorated to taste, and there are many fine examples of frescoes and artwork on ceilings especially in religious buildings.

The most common type of ceiling is the dropped ceiling which is suspended from structural elements above. Pipework or ducts can be run in the gap above the ceiling, and insulation and fireproofing material can be placed here. Other types of ceiling include the cathedral ceiling, the concave or barrel-shaped ceiling, the stretched ceiling and the coffered ceiling. Cove work often links the ceiling to the surrounding walls. Ceilings can play a part in reducing fire hazard, and a system is available for rating the fire resistance of dropped ceilings.

Ceiling (disambiguation)

A ceiling is the upper surface of a room.

Ceiling may also refer to:

  • Ceiling function in mathematics
  • Glass ceiling a barrier to advancement of a qualified person
  • Ceiling (aircraft) the maximum density altitude an aircraft can reach under a set of conditions
  • Price ceiling an imposed limit on the price of a product
  • Ceiling effect (disambiguation)
  • Ceiling (cloud) the height above ground at which (accumulated) cloud layers cover more than 50% of the sky
Ceiling (cloud)

In aviation, ceiling is a measurement of the height of the base of the lowest clouds (not to be confused with cloud base which has a specific definition) that cover more than half of the sky (more than 4 oktas) relative to the ground. Ceiling is not specifically reported as part of the METAR (METeorological Aviation Report) used for flight planning by pilots worldwide, but can be deduced from the lowest height with broken (BKN) or overcast (OVC) reported. A ceiling listed as "unlimited" means either that the sky is mostly free of cloud cover, or that the cloud is high enough not to impede Visual Flight Rules ( VFR) operation.

Related phrases:

Usage examples of "ceiling".

And the ceiling fair that rose aboon The white and feathery fleece of noon.

Tooe shot through it, flipping over to bounce off the ceiling and accelerating down through the short cabin toward the control section.

Parker even more when she bade me a simple adieu, and did not seek to impress upon me the virtues of this or that plow, the rakes and tines and blades of which were pendant from the ceiling in a Damoclean display.

She wanted to see Aerians sweeping the heights above, and Leontines prowling around the pillars that were placed beneath those heights, as if they held up not only ceiling but sky.

Clodius Afer, tilting his head to peer at the curving surface of the ceiling eighty feet above.

Clodius Afer said nonchalantly to the ceiling, where a yellow bead obediently sprang to life.

Nearly half of the ceiling had collapsed, and the resulting pile of polyp slivers had agglutinated in an alarmingly concave wall, as though the avalanche had halted half-way through.

The passage let into a circular sanctorum, its albescent walls worked in intricate arabesques, its high vaulted ceiling held aloft by fluted alabaster columns.

Before she could say anything, however, Alise sat up in bed and cracked her head on the low ceiling.

There was a wall switch near the door, which Alker had turned on, then off, producing a temporary glare from ceiling lights.

Next to it was an octagonal room, the walls, the ceiling, and the floor of which were entirely covered with splendid Venetian glass, arranged in such a manner as to reflect on all sides every position of the amorous couple enjoying the pleasures of love.

The ceiling was so low that its beams were scarred by tracks of ancipital horn points - possibly a deliberate device to emphasize the fact that the Phagorian Guard were never dehorned.

The blue trollies had been replaced with hi-tech steely ones, the ceiling lowered, the faintly aquarial plate glass was replaced with storm-grey-one-way-see-through-no-glare which made even bright days dull ones.

Wrought iron candelabras set at either end of the room threw wavering aqueous reflections on to the ceiling.

He entered the next cellar and picked his way through a tumbled mass of ceiling that threw up sparks as his asbestos boots encountered it.