Definition of "quill" in Englisch

noun

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

2. A pen made from a feather.

3. (by extension) Any pen.

   • He picked up his quill and wrote a poem.

4. 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.

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

6. (zoology) The pen of a squid.

7. (music) The plectrum with which musicians strike the strings of certain instruments.

8. (music) The tube of a musical instrument.

9. Something having the form of a quill, such as the fold or plain of a ruff, or (weaving) a spindle, or spool, upon which the thread for the woof is wound in a shuttle.

10. (mechanical engineering) A quill drive, having a hollow shaft with another movable shaft inside it.

verb

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

2. (figuratively) To write.

3. To form fabric into small, rounded folds.

4. To decorate with quillwork.

5. (US and Canada, especially Appalachia and the Prairies, 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.