cal

cal

1. calorie
2. (international standards) ISO 639-3 language code for Carolinian.

• ㎉ / kcal

• Wiktionary’s coverage of Carolinian terms

• IPA^(key): /kæl/
• Rhymes: -æl

Clippings.

cal (plural cals)

1. (informal) Clipping of calorie.
2. (military, informal) Clipping of caliber.
3. (informal) Clipping of calendar.
   • 2020 April 1, Taylor Lorenz, “Stop Trying to Be Productive”, in The New York Times‎^[1]:

     “I set an hour on my cal every day for a home workout. Then I’d be on calls for three hours, then I’d make a homemade breakfast, take a walk at lunchtime, work on something non-screen-related in the evening, cook dinner and go on a run,” she said.

4. Clipping of calibration.

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

cal (uncountable)

1. (mining, archaic, UK, dialect, Cornwall) wolfram, an ore of tungsten.^[1]

From an abbreviation of calcium hydroxide.

cal (uncountable)

1. calcium hydroxide, slaked lime

• ACL, CLA, LAC, LAc, LCA, Lac, alc, lac

Same as çal with the usual c:ç alteration in the first letter ( also cek:çek, cep:çep, cipë:çipë, etc.). Northern Gheg word, also used as first and last name, Cal +‎ -i. Lambertz classifies Cali as an Illyrian name,^[1] but Çabej considers it unconvincing.^[2]

cal m (plural calë, definite cali, definite plural calët)

1. lame person, one who limps

   Synonyms: çal, çalaman

2=calë
3=cale

cal (feminine cale)

1. limper, lame

• calu

From Late Latin caballus (“horse”), from Latin caballus (“pack horse”). Compare Romanian cal.

cal m (plural calj or cai)

1. horse

• cãlãrets
• cãlar / ncãlar
• cãlãriu
• ncalic

• IPA^(key): (Central, Balearic, Valencia) [ˈkal]
• Rhymes: -al

cal

1. contraction of ca +‎ el

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

cal

1. third-person singular present indicative of caldre

From clipping of English calibrate.

cal

1. (Hong Kong Cantonese) to fine-tune; to calibrate (a hardware, e.g. camera, television, speakers)

• cal機／cal机, caltor

From Latin quālis.

cal

1. as

From Latin callis.

cal

1. road, street

• Bartoli, Matteo (1906), Il Dalmatico: Resti di un’antica lingua romanza parlata da Veglia a Ragusa e sua collocazione nella Romània appenino-balcanica, Rome: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, published 2000

• IPA^(key): /kal/

cal m (plural cals)

1. callus (hardened part of the skin)

• “cal”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012

• IPA^(key): /ˈkal/ [ˈkɑɫ]
• Rhymes: -al

From Old Galician-Portuguese cal, from Vulgar Latin *calem, from Latin calx, from Ancient Greek χάλιξ (khálix, “pebble”).

cal m (plural cales)

1. lime (calcium oxide)

From Old Galician-Portuguese caal, from Latin canalis. Doublet of canal.

• canle

cal m or f (plural cales)

1. ditch
2. furrow
3. mill race
4. chute

From Old Galician-Portuguese cal / qual, from Latin quālis (“which”). Cognate with Portuguese qual and Spanish cual.

• cual

cal (plural cales)

1. which (what one)

cal f (uncountable)

1. abbreviation of caloría

• Seoane, Ernesto Xosé González; Granja, María Álvarez de la; Agrelo, Ana Isabel Boullón (2006–2022), “qual”, in Dicionario de Dicionarios do galego medieval [Dictionary of dictionaries of Medieval Galician] (in Galician), Santiago de Compostela: Instituto da Lingua Galega
• Seoane, Ernesto Xosé González; Granja, María Álvarez de la; Agrelo, Ana Isabel Boullón (2006–2022), “cal”, in Dicionario de Dicionarios do galego medieval [Dictionary of dictionaries of Medieval Galician] (in Galician), Santiago de Compostela: Instituto da Lingua Galega
• Seoane, Ernesto Xosé González; Granja, María Álvarez de la; Agrelo, Ana Isabel Boullón (2006–2022), “cãal”, in Dicionario de Dicionarios do galego medieval [Dictionary of dictionaries of Medieval Galician] (in Galician), Santiago de Compostela: Instituto da Lingua Galega
• Barreiro, Xavier Varela; Guinovart, Xavier Gómez (2006–2018), “cal”, in Corpus Xelmírez: corpus lingüístico da Galicia medieval [Corpus Xelmírez: linguistic corpus of Medieval Galicia] (in Galician), Santiago de Compostela: Instituto da Lingua Galega
• Antón Luís Santamarina Fernández, editor (2006–2013), “cal”, in Dicionario de Dicionarios da lingua galega [Dictionary of Dictionaries of the Galician language] (in Galician), Santiago de Compostela: Instituto da Lingua Galega
• Antón Luís Santamarina Fernández, Ernesto Xosé González Seoane, María Álvarez de la Granja, editors (2003–2018), “cal”, in Tesouro informatizado da lingua galega (in Galician), Santiago de Compostela: Instituto da Lingua Galega
• Rosario Álvarez Blanco, editor (2014–2024), “cal”, in Tesouro do léxico patrimonial galego e portugués (in Galician), Santiago de Compostela: Instituto da Lingua Galega, →ISSN

From Latin callis, callem.

cal

1. street, alley

Inherited from Late Latin caballus (“horse”),^[1] from Latin caballus (“pack horse”), probably of Gaulish [Term?] origin.

cal m

1. horse

• Atasanov, Petar (1990), Le mégléno-roumain de nos jours: Une approche linguistique, Hamburg: Buske

cal (Northern)

1. alternative form of col

Variant of cawel.

• IPA^(key): /kɑːl/

cāl m

1. cabbage, kale, colewort

This noun needs an inflection-table template.

• Middle English: col
  • English: cole

• Joseph Bosworth; T. Northcote Toller (1898), “cál”, in An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, second edition, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

• IPA^(key): [ˈkal]
• Rhymes: -al
• Hyphenation: cal

Inherited from Vulgar Latin cals, from Latin calx, from Ancient Greek χάλιξ (khálix, “pebble”).

cal f (plural cals)

1. lime (calcium oxide)
   • 13th century, Afonso Lopes de Baião, En arouca hũa casa faria; republished as chapter 1471, in Angelo Colocci, compiler, Cancioneiro da Biblioteca Nacional‎^[2], c. 1526:

     En arouca hũa casa faria
     Atantei grã sabor dea fazer
     Que ia mays custa nõ recearia
     Nen ar daria rẽ por meu auer
     Ca ey pedreyꝛos e pedra e cal
     E desta casa nõ mi mĩgua al
     Senõ madeyra noua q̃ queria

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

• Galician: cal
• Portuguese: cal

cal

1. alternative form of qual

• Galician: cal

• Ferreiro, Manuel (2014–2026), “cal”, in Universo Cantigas: edición crítica da poesía medieval galego-portuguesa [Universo Cantigas: critical edition of Galician-Portuguese medieval poetry] (in Galician), A Coruña: University of A Coruña, →ISSN

From Proto-Nahuan *kal-lɨ, from Proto-Uto-Aztecan *kaLi-ta. Compare Classical Nahuatl calli (“house”).

• (Standard) IPA^(key): /kal/
• (Witzapan) IPA^(key): /ɡal/
• (Cuisnahuat) IPA^(key): /kaɬ/, /kaːl/
• (Teotepeque) IPA^(key): /kaɬ/
• (Jicalapa) IPA^(key): /kaɬʲ/

cal (plural cahcal)

1. an enclosed habitational space, a house or room. alternative form of kal

   Ne nocompa nemi tic oni toltic cal

   My friend lives in that yellow house

• -chan (“home”)

• IPA^(key): /ˈt͡sal/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Rhymes: -al
• Syllabification: cal

Borrowed from German Zoll.

cal m inan

1. inch (English unit of length equal to 1/12 of a foot or 2.54 cm, conceived as roughly the width of a thumb)

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

cal

1. second-person singular imperative of calić

• “cal”, in Wielki słownik języka polskiego‎^[3] (in Polish), Instytut Języka Polskiego PAN
• “cal”, in Polish dictionaries at PWN‎^[4] (in Polish)

Inherited from Old Galician-Portuguese cal, from Vulgar Latin cals, from Latin calx, from Ancient Greek χάλιξ (khálix, “pebble”).

• Rhymes: (Portugal) -al, (Brazil) -aw
• Hyphenation: cal

cal f or (nonstandard) m (usually uncountable, plural cales or cais)

1. lime (calcium oxide)

Although common, the usage of cal as a masculine-gender noun is proscribed.

• “cal”, in Dicionário Aulete Digital (in Portuguese), Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon Editora Digital, 2008–2026
• “cal”, in Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa (in Portuguese), Lisbon: Priberam, 2008–2026

Inherited from Late Latin caballus (“horse”), from Latin caballus (“pack horse”), probably of Gaulish [Term?] origin or from something further east, such as a Scythian and ultimately Proto-Iranian [Term?] origin.^[1] The Romanian word likely went through an earlier hypothetical form *căal or *caual.^[2] Compare Aromanian cal.

• IPA^(key): /kal/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Audio:

  (file)

cal m (plural cai)

1. horse
2. (chess) knight

• călare
• încăleca

• IPA^(key): /ˈkal/ [ˈkal]

• Audio (Colombia):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -al
• Syllabification: cal

Inherited from Vulgar Latin cals, from Latin calx (via the nominative), from Ancient Greek χάλιξ (khálix, “pebble”).

cal f (uncountable)

1. lime (calcium oxide)

cal

1. Symbol of caloría

• “cal”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.8.1, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 15 December 2025

cal (genitive cala, plural cals)

1. occupation
2. office (position)
3. profession

From Proto-Brythonic *kalɣ, from Proto-Celtic *kalgā. Cognate with Cornish kal, kalgh; Breton kalc'h.

• IPA^(key): /kal/
• Rhymes: -al

cal f

1. alternative form of cala (“penis”)

• caldrist (“helleborine, orchid”)