pellet
/ˈpɛl.ɪt/ noun, verb
Forms pellets pelleting pelleted
- noun A small, compressed, hard chunk of matter. “a pellet of wood, paper, or ore”
- noun A lead projectile used as ammunition in rifled air guns.
- noun Compressed byproduct of digestion regurgitated by owls and many other birds of prey, which serves as a waste disposal mechanism for indigestible parts of food, such as fur and bones.
- noun (heraldry) A roundel sable (black circular spot).
- noun One of the short conductive tubes in a Pelletron particle accelerator.
- verb To form into pellets.
- verb To strike with pellets.
Synonyms
Etymology
Inherited from Middle English pelote, pelet, from Old French pelote (“small ball”), from Vulgar Latin *pilotta, diminutive of Latin pila (“ball”). Doublet of pelota.
Webster’s 1913
- noun A little ball; as, a pellet of wax .
- noun A bullet; a ball for firearms. [Obs.] Bacon.
- verb To form into small balls. [Obs.] Shak.
Etymology [F. pelote, LL. pelota, pilota, fr. L. pila a ball. Cf. Platoon.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “pellet”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details