yle

From Medieval Latin hȳlē (“matter, the fundamental matter of all things; the matter of the body”) (whence English hyle), a transliteration of Ancient Greek ὕλη (húlē, “wood; material, substance; matter”) or πρώτη ὕλη (prṓtē húlē, “fundamental matter”). The concept of “fundamental matter” was propounded by the Greek philosopher and scientist Aristotle (384–322 BCE).

yle (uncountable)

1. (philosophy) Matter.
   • 1390, John Gower, Confessio Amantis [The Lover's Confession]; published as Reinhold Pauli, editor, Confessio Amantis of John Gower: Edited and Collated with the Best Manuscripts by Dr. Reinhold Pauli, volume III, London: Bell and Daldy Fleet Street, 1857, OCLC 162886391, liber septimus [book 7], pages 91–92:

     For yet withouten any forme / Was that matere univerſal, / Which hight Ylem in ſpeciall. / Of Ylem as I am enformed, / Theſe elements ben made and formed, / Of Ylem elements they hote / After the ſcole of Ariſtote, / Of which if more I ſhall reherce, / Four elements there ben diverſe.

• hile
• hyla
• ylem

• Bradley Strattman, A Middle-English Dictionary [12th–15th century], Oxford University Press, 1891 (1967)
• “yle” in The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989, →ISBN.

From Old French isle, from Latin īnsula.

• ile

yle (plural yles)

1. Isle, island.
   • 1390, Geoffrey Chaucer, “Man of Law's Tale”, in Canterbury Tales:

   The bareyne ile stondynge in the see.

• English: isle