QUILL
What does "QUILL" mean?
A pen made from a bird's large flight feather, with the hollow shaft cut to a point.
Meanings
- A writing pen made from the hollow shaft of a bird's feather. He dipped the quill in the inkwell and signed his name.
- Any of the sharp, hollow spines of a porcupine or hedgehog. The dog came home with a muzzle full of porcupine quills.
- The hollow shaft of a feather; the calamus. The quill of the feather snapped where it met the vane. technical
- To wind thread or yarn onto a bobbin or spool. She quilled the silk before threading the loom. technical
Did you know?
- The quill pen ruled Western writing for roughly a thousand years - from around the 6th century until steel nibs displaced it in the 1800s, every famous manuscript and constitution before then was scratched out with a sharpened feather.
Word origin
From Middle English 'quil', meaning a reed or hollow stalk, probably from Middle Low German 'quiele'; the writing sense follows the feather shaft used to hold ink.
Remember it
QUILL ends in a double-L like a feather's split tip - the two prongs of the cut nib.
A little poem
A goose loses one
grey feather to the inkwell-
now it speaks for kings.
haiku
Wordplay
- Why was the porcupine such a good author? It always had its quills ready.
What it teaches
The lightest tool can outlast the hand that holds it - words written with a feather have buried empires.
Quick facts
What does QUILL mean?
A pen made from a bird's large flight feather, with the hollow shaft cut to a point.
Is QUILL a valid word?
Yes — QUILL is one of the answer words in Wordul, the daily word game.
How many letters is QUILL?
QUILL has 5 letters and 1 syllable.
Where does QUILL come from?
From Middle English 'quil', meaning a reed or hollow stalk, probably from Middle Low German 'quiele'; the writing sense follows the feather shaft used to hold ink.
What can QUILL teach us?
The lightest tool can outlast the hand that holds it - words written with a feather have buried empires.
How players do
Be the first to solve it.