pill
noun
- form of medication
Wiktionary
Pronunciation: /pɪl/ / [pʰɪɫ]
name
Etymology: English surname, both from the noun pill (originally "little ball") and from sense 3 (“inlet, tidal creek”).
- A surname.
noun
Etymology: From Middle English *pill, *pyll, from Old English pyll (“a pool, pill”), from Proto-Germanic *pullijaz (“small pool, ditch, creek”), diminutive of Proto-Germanic *pullaz (“pool, stream”), from Proto-Indo-European *bl̥nos (“bog, marsh”). Cognate with Old English pull (“pool, creek”), Scots poll (“slow moving stream, creek, inlet”), Icelandic pollur (“pond, pool, puddle”). More at pool.
- An inlet on the coast; a small tidal pool or bay. Pill can occur in the name of such an inlet.
“Portishead, lying west-north-west of Bristol, on the Severn, had a small port from medieval times on its pill, or inlet, and began to develop as a seaside resort early in the nineteenth century, when it was served by steam packets from Bristol.”
“For fifty years, then, five times a week, the packet steamers came and went along that superb stretch of blue water, the trains rattled down the wooded valley of the pill, and their passengers rested and refreshed themselves in thriving New Milford, where flunkeys bowed before the best hotel. Those are the days which Neyland people, especially the older ones, recall with pride.”
verb
Etymology: From Middle English pillen, pilen, from Old English pilian (“to peel”), from Latin pilō (“depilate”), from pilus (“hair”). Doublet of peel.
- To peel; to remove the outer layer of hair, skin, or bark.
- To peel; to make by removing the skin.
“[Jacob] pilled white streaks[…]in the rods.”
- To be peeled; to peel off in flakes.
- To pillage; to despoil or impoverish.
“So syr Lucan departed for he was greuously wounded in many places And so as he yede he sawe and herkened by the mone lyght how that pyllars and robbers were comen in to the felde To pylle and robbe many a ful noble knyghte of brochys and bedys of many a good rynge & of many a ryche Iewel / and who that were not deed al oute”
“The Galles and thoſe pilling Briggandines, That yeerely ſaile to the Uenetian goulfe, And houer in the ſtraightes for Chriſtians wracke, Shall lie at anchor in the Iſle Aſant.”