pill

A small, usually round or cylindrical object designed for easy swallowing, usually containing some sort of medication.

Take two pills every hour in the apyrexia of intermittent fever, until eight are taken.

A small, usually round or cylindrical object designed for easy swallowing, usually containing some sort of medication.

Contraceptive medication, usually in the form of a pill to be taken by a woman; an oral contraceptive pill.

Jane went on the pill when she left for college.

She got pregnant one month after going off the pill.

Something offensive, unpleasant or nauseous which must be accepted or endured.

"It's a sad unpalatable truth," said Mr. Pembroke, thinking that the despondency might be personal, "but one must accept it. My sister and Gerald, I am thankful to say, have accepted it, so naturally it has been a little pill."

A contemptible, annoying, or unpleasant person.

You see, he's egging Phyllis on to marry Wilbert Cream. [...] And when a man like that eggs, something has to give, especially when the girl's a pill like Phyllis, who always does what Daddy tells her.

Instead, I saw a woman in her mid-fifties, who was a real pill; while all the others had managed a decent “So pleased,” or even a plain “Hello,” Ginger just inclined her head, as if she was doing a Queen Mary imitation.

Of a woven fabric surface, to form small matted balls of fiber.

This sweater is already pilled: it fuzzed after the very first wash.

During processing, inferior short fibers (which can cause pilling and itching) are removed to enhance the natural softness of the yarn and to improve its wash-and-wear performance.

To form into the shape of a pill.

Pilling is a skill rarely used by modern pharmacists.

To medicate with pills; to administer pills to.

She pills herself with all sorts of herbal medicines.

Pilling the cat is such a nightmare.

To persuade or convince someone of something.

To blackball (a potential club member).

“I pilled him because he is a liar,” said Thackeray. “He calls himself 'ill' when he isn't.”

To peel; to remove the outer layer of hair, skin, or bark.

To peel; to make by removing the skin.

[Jacob] pilled white streaks[…]in the rods.

To be peeled; to peel off in flakes.

To pillage; to despoil or impoverish.

So syr Lucan departed for he was greuously wounded in many places And so as he yede he sawe and herkened by the mone lyght how that pyllars and robbers were comen in to the felde To pylle and robbe many a ful noble knyghte of brochys and bedys of many a good rynge & of many a ryche Iewel / and who that were not deed al oute

The Galles and thoſe pilling Briggandines, That yeerely ſaile to the Uenetian goulfe, And houer in the ſtraightes for Chriſtians wracke, Shall lie at anchor in the Iſle Aſant.