quill

IPA: kwˈɪɫ

The lower shaft of a feather, specifically the region lacking barbs.
A pen made from a feather.
(by extension) Any pen.
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.
A thin piece of bark, especially of cinnamon or cinchona, curled up into a tube.
The pen of a squid.
(music) The plectrum with which musicians strike the strings of certain instruments.
(music) The tube of a musical instrument.
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.
A surname from Irish.

To pierce with quills. (Usually in the passive voice, as be quilled or get quilled.)
(figuratively) To write.
To form fabric into small, rounded folds.
To decorate with quillwork.
(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).

Examples of "quill" in Sentences

Consequently an instrument was made for that purpose, known as the quill-pen cutter.
Elayne knew she shouldn’t have tried to substitute a chicken feather for the quill from a magical hoopoe bird.
For the next several moments, the retreating howl of the wind and the scratch of her quill were the only noises in the room.
Crossed quills (quill feather pens) would be a Yeoman (clerical job), and a book with a quill is a Personnelman (also clerical).
Now, it must be here understood, that ink is the great missive weapon in all battles of the learned, which, conveyed through a sort of engine called a quill, infinite numbers of these are darted at the enemy by the valiant on each side, with equal skill and violence, as if it were an engagement of porcupines.
Then we knights of the quill are a stiff-necked generation, who as seldom care to seem to doubt the worth of our writings, and their being liked, as we love to flatter more than one at a time; and had rather draw our pens, and stand up for the beauty of our works (as some arrant fools use to do for that of their mistresses) to the last drop of our ink.
Lastly, his dress is plain, without singularity, -- with no other ornament than the quill, which is the badge of his function, stuck behind the dexter ear, and this rather for convenience of having it at hand, when he hath been called away from his desk, and expecteth to resume his seat there again shortly, than from any delight which he taketh in foppery or ostentation.