Gunwale is pronounced gunnel because the word comes from an older two word term, gun wale. In earlier shipbuilding, a wale was a thick horizontal plank along a ship’s side. The gun wale was the wale where guns were mounted.
As often happens in English, frequent speech compressed the phrase. Gun wale gradually became gunnel in pronunciation, but the spelling settled into gunwale. That leaves us with a word whose written form looks more literal and whose spoken form preserves the older rhythm of the phrase.
Today, gunwale usually means the upper edge of a boat’s side, even on boats that have nothing to do with cannons. For example, you might say, Water splashed over the gunwale, but you would pronounce it as gunnel.
- Spelling: gunwale
- Pronunciation: gunnel
- Original sense: the wale where guns were mounted
- Modern sense: the top edge of a boat’s side
So the unusual pronunciation is not random. It is a small piece of nautical history preserved in everyday English.
