quill
To pierce with quillsTo pierce with quills. (Usually in the passive voice, as be quilled or get quilled.)
Recorded US: Speaker: Naomi Persephone Amethyst Recorder: NaomiAmethyst, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons
» Porcupine quills are essentially modified hairs.
Adelpa · Tatoeba · CC BY 2.0 FRMeaning
5 sensesTo pierce with quills. (Usually in the passive voice, as be quilled or get quilled.)
(figuratively)To write.
To form fabric into small, rounded folds.
To decorate with quillwork.
(Canada, US, transitive)To subject (a woman who is giving birth) to the practice of quilling (blowing pepper into her nose to induce or hasten labor).
For quotations using this term, see Citations:quill.
Examples
11 sentencesPorcupine quills are essentially modified hairs.
Kalman was afraid of the hedgehog's quills.
My quill ran out of ink this morning.
deMeiner Feder ist heute Morgen die Tinte ausgegangen. — Yorwba
My father will urge you to love your books and quills.
You can handle hedgehogs when their quills are down, even pet them.
Origin
From late Middle English quyl, which is first attested in the early 15th century with theFrom late Middle English quyl, which is first attested in the early 15th century with the meanings "fragment of reed" and "shaft of a feather", probably from Low German and Middle Low German quiele, possibly ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *gʷelH- (“to pierce, stick”).
Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0 · source
Forms
quills, quilling, quilled, quilledLessons for this word
3 lessons- A1Present simple — Because it is a verb
- A1Past simple, regular verbs — Because of its past form
- A2Present perfect: introduction — Because of its past participle
See also
neighbours in the dictionaryDictionary text adapted from Wiktionary (Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0) and Open English WordNet / Princeton WordNet (CC BY 4.0, WordNet License); shared under CC BY-SA 4.0. Example sentences and recordings are credited where they appear.