Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary - cell

 noun  Etymology: Middle English, from Old English, religious house and Anglo-French ~e hermit's ~, from Latin ~a small room; akin to Latin celare to conceal — more at hell  Date: 12th century  1. a small religious house dependent on a monastery or convent  2.  a. a one-room dwelling occupied by a solitary person (as a hermit)  b. a single room (as in a convent or prison) usually for one person  3. a small compartment, cavity, or bounded space: as  a. one of the compartments of a honeycomb  b. a membranous area bounded by veins in the wing of an insect  4. a small usually microscopic mass of protoplasm bounded externally by a semipermeable membrane, usually including one or more nuclei and various other organelles with their products, capable alone or interacting with other ~s of performing all the fundamental functions of life, and forming the smallest structural unit of living matter capable of functioning independently  5.  a.  (1) a receptacle containing electrodes and an electrolyte either for generating electricity by chemical action or for use in electrolysis  (2) fuel ~  b. a single unit in a device for converting radiant energy into electrical energy or for varying the intensity of an electrical current in accordance with radiation  6. a unit in a statistical array (as a spreadsheet) formed by the intersection of a column and a row  7. a basic and usually small unit of an organization or movement terrorist ~s  8. a portion of the atmosphere that behaves as a unit a storm ~  9.  a. any of the small sections of a geographic area of a ~ular telephone system  b. ~ phone