English
cella
Cella comes from Latin cella ‘a small room, a hut, storeroom’, and goes back to Proto-Indo-European *ḱel- ‘to cover’.
- Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*ḱel-1‘to cover’reconstructed
- Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEcella2‘a small room, a hut, storeroom’
- Englishearliest quotation 1990cella2
attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor
- 1 Wiktionary, Latin cella
- 2 Wiktionary, English cella
- Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 1990, Camille Paglia: “Room by room, Sarrasine advances to the cella of…”.
Lineage
- Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*ḱel-Wiktionary, Latin cella‘to cover’reconstructed
- Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEcellaWiktionary, English cella‘a small room, a hut, storeroom’
- Englishearliest quotation 1990cellaWiktionary, English cella. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 1990, Camille Paglia: “Room by room, Sarrasine advances to the cella of…”
Linked words
through Proto-Indo-European *ḱel- ‘to cover’
color, hole, hall, hell, holder, ceiling, halt, helmet, hull, hollow, holden, uphold, helm, occult, conceal, sari, clandestine, cilia, recline, sala, declination, declension, tricolour, holing, haugh, halberd, seel, hele, 34 more
through Latin cella ‘a small room, a hut, storeroom’
Today it means
noun The central, enclosed part of an ancient temple, as distinguished from the open porticos.
Sources
Sources: Wiktionary, “cella”; the older steps come from the Wiktionary entry for Latin cella. By Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0, via kaikki.org (dump of Oct 3 2026); text adapted and restructured. Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word. License.
Etymograph / Proto-Indo-European *ḱel- / cella