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An upright frame for displaying or supporting something, such as an artist's canvas.

[Dutch ezel, ass, from Middle Dutch esel, from Latin asellus, diminutive of asinus.]

WORD HISTORY   “A painter's ass” is not a phrase that immediately brings to mind an accessory to the artist's profession. But easel comes to us from the Dutch word ezel, meaning “ass, donkey.” The Dutch word was eventually extended to mean “an upright frame for displaying or supporting something,” in the same way that the English word horse has come to mean “a piece of gymnastic equipment with an upholstered body.” Developments such as these illustrate the playfulness or wit that speakers often bring to language, here applying the name for one object to another with similar properties.

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A tall, standing frame used to hold an artist's canvas, signs, a chalkboard, etc.

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An easel is an upright support (generally a tripod) used for displaying and/or fixing something resting upon it.

The word is an old Germanic synonym for donkey (compare similar semantics); its equivalent is the only word for both animal and apparatus in various languages, such as Esel in German and earlier ezel in Dutch (the easel generally in full schildersezel, 'painter's donkey'), themselves derived from Latin Asinus (hance ass).

It is really a standing type of multipart frame, and that word is preferred in certain contexts, e.g. for a device to position a punishee over.

It is most often used to hold up a painter's canvas or large sketchbook while the artist is working or to hold a completed painting for exhibition. The simplest form of an artist's easel consists of three vertical posts joined at one end. A pivoting mechanism allows the centremost post to pivot away from the other two, forming a tripod. The two non-pivoting posts have a horizontal cross member on which the canvas is placed. A similar model is fit to hold a blackboard, projection surface, parcard etcetera.

An easel can be full-height, designed for standing by itself on the floor. Shorter easels can also be designed for use on a table. The full-height easels typically have telescopic legs that collapse for ease of transport.

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Easels are known to have been in use since the time of the ancient Egyptians. In the 1st century, Pliny the Elder makes reference to a large panel placed upon an easel.

Easel (ESL) is a visual development tool for building workstation applications that can interact with mainframes, servers and databases using a wide variety of protocols.