quill

The lower shaft of a feather, specifically the region lacking barbs.

A pen made from a feather.

The note was written in a delicate hand with a crow-quill, on primrose-coloured paper, with a lilac seal—the motto "tout à vous;" and the whole with just a faint perfume of jasmine.

Any pen.

He picked up his quill and wrote a poem.

A sharply pointed, barbed, and easily detached needle-like structure that grows on the skin of a porcupine or hedgehog as a defense against predators.

I could a Tale vnfold, vvhoſe lighteſt vvord / VVould harrovv vp thy ſoule, freeze thy young blood, / Make thy tvvo eyes like Starres, ſtart from their Spheres, / Thy knotty and combined locks to part, / And each particular haire to ſtand an end, / Like Quilles vpon the fretfull Porpentine: […]

A thin piece of bark, especially of cinnamon or cinchona, curled up into a tube.

To pierce with quills. (Usually in the passive voice, as be quilled or get quilled.)

Coyotes, bears, and mountain lions which occasionally kill porcupines are sometimes quilled.

Then one of my dogs got quilled, and it happened again a month later. After putting the dog in a headlock, yanking out several dozen quills, and spurting blood all over myself and the decking of the back porch, I at least understood his antiporcupine venom.

To write.

Nibs never would have quilled a seriph to sheepskin.

One has only to recall that Coleridge and Wordsworth one day were lounging by the sea shore, while nearby sat an English police agent on snitch patrol prepared to rush to headquarters to quill a report about the conversation.

To form fabric into small, rounded folds.

To decorate with quillwork.

Another characteristic of Plains Indians was the fairly strict division between art made and used by men and art made and used by women. Although men and women sometimes cooperated, women usually painted or quilled very balanced, controlled geometric designs on dresses, moccasins, robes, bags, and containers.

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.

A surname from Irish.