From 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-.

Compare Middle High German kil, which is derived from the Low German term.

• IPA: /kwɪl/, [kʰw̥ɪl]

quill (plural quills)

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

   Synonyms: calamus

2. A pen made from a feather.

   Synonyms: feather pen, quill pen

   • 1838 (date written), L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter VII, in Lady Anne Granard; or, Keeping up Appearances. […], volume I, London: Henry Colburn, […], published 1842, →OCLC ↗, page 77 ↗:

     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.

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. [from early 17th c.]
   • c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC ↗, [Act I, scene v], page 257 ↗, column 2:

     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: […]

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.
   • 1637, John Milton, “Lycidas”, in Poems of Mr. John Milton, […], London: […] Ruth Raworth for Humphrey Mosely, […], published 1646, →OCLC ↗:

     He touched the tender stops of various quills.

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.
   • 1990, Stephen King, The Moving Finger:

     His hair still stood up in punk-rock quills and spikes.

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

• French: plume
• German: Kiel
• Italian: calamo
• Russian: ствол перо
• Spanish: cálamo

• French: plume
• German: Schreibfeder, Federkiel, Feder
• Italian: calamo, penna d'oca
• Portuguese: pena
• Russian: перо́
• Spanish: pluma

• German: Stift
• Italian: penna
• Spanish: pluma

• French: piquant, épine
• German: Stachel
• Italian: aculeo
• Russian: иго́лка
• Spanish: púa

quill (quills, present participle quilling; simple past and past participle quilled)

1. To pierce with quills. (Usually in the passive voice, as be quilled or get quilled.)
2. (figuratively) To write.
   • 1939 May 4, James Joyce, Finnegans Wake, London: Faber and Faber Limited, →OCLC ↗; republished London: Faber & Faber Limited, 1960, →OCLC ↗, part I, page 182 ↗:

     Nibs never would have quilled a seriph to sheepskin.

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).

Reduced Anglicized form of Irish Ó Cuill, a byname from coll ("hazel tree").

1. Surname.