An isle is a small island, especially one that feels remote or picturesque. When you read about pirates burying treasure on a desert isle, you're imagining a tiny island surrounded by ocean. The British Isles include Great Britain and Ireland, though “isles” in that name is more traditional than literal, since those islands aren't particularly small.

You'll encounter isle most often in poetry, stories, and place names, where it adds a romantic or old-fashioned feeling. Writers might describe a “tropical isle” with palm trees and white sand, or a “rocky isle” rising from stormy seas. It's pronounced exactly like “aisle” (the walkway between rows of seats), which sometimes confuses people.

In modern everyday speech, people usually just say “island” instead. But isle appears frequently in literature and geography. Robert Louis Stevenson's famous adventure novel is called Treasure Island, but he might have called it Treasure Isle for a more mysterious sound. When you see the word isle, it often signals that you're reading something with a touch of adventure, history, or romance to it.