micelle
/maɪˈsɛl/noun
micelle is a noun meaning “a colloidal aggregate, in a simple geometric form, of a specific number of amphipathic molecules which forms at a well-defined concentration, called…” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled M-I-C-E-L-L-E, and it appears about once in every 18 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of micelle is micelles.
What does micelle mean?
noun
- 1
a colloidal aggregate, in a simple geometric form, of a specific number of amphipathic molecules which forms at a well-defined concentration, called the critical micelle concentration
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce micelle?
- /maɪˈsɛl/
- /məˈsɛl/
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Flame,_not_lame-micelle.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of micelle
- micelles plural
- micell
- micella
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is micelle?
Micelle appears about once in every 18 million words in written English, the 127,184th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Micelle in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense colloidal aggregate:
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does micelle come from?
Borrowed from New Latin mīcella, from mīca (“crumb”) + -ella.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).