quill

Etymology

From late Middle English quil, 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”). Compare Middle High German kil (“large feather, quill”), which is derived from the Low German term.

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. 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.
   His hair still stood up in punk-rock quills and spikes. 1990, Stephen King, The Moving Finger

verb

1. 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. 1966, David Francis Costello, The World of the Porcupine, J. B. Lippincott & Company, page 66
   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. 2010, Mark Parman, A Grouse Hunter's Almanac: The Other Kind of Hunting, University of Wisconsin Press, page 49
2. (figurative) To write.
   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. 1976, Ed Sanders, Investigative Poetry, City Lights, published 1976, page 11
3. To form fabric into small, rounded folds.
4. 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. 2007, David J. Wishart, Encyclopedia of the Great Plains Indians, University of Nebraska Press, published 2007, page 32
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.