Klryz
Pronunciation guide: IPA symbols, stress and word endings

Vowels

iːseeɪsite / ɛbedæcat
ɑːfatherɒhot (UK)ɔːlawʊput
uːtooʌcupɜːbirdəabout
eɪdayaɪmyɔɪboyaʊnow
əʊ / oʊgo (UK / US)ɪəneareəhairʊətour

Consonants that look unusual

θthinðthisʃsheʒmeasure
tʃchurchdʒjudgeŋsingjyes

p b t d k g f v s z h m n l r w sound as in ordinary English spelling.

Marks

  • ˈ main stress, before the stressed syllable: /ˈwɔːtə/ water · ˌ lighter (secondary) stress: /ˌʌndəˈstænd/ understand
  • ː a long vowel · (r) an r said only in accents that pronounce it (most American, Scottish, Irish)

Common word endings

  • -s / -es (plurals; he/she form of verbs): /s/ after voiceless sounds (cats), /z/ after voiced (dogs), /ɪz/ after s, z, sh, ch, j sounds (buses, watches). Spelling: -es after s, x, z, ch, sh; consonant + y → -ies (city → cities).
  • -ed (past): /t/ after voiceless sounds (walked), /d/ after voiced (played), /ɪd/ after t or d (wanted). Spelling: love → loved, stop → stopped, carry → carried.
  • -ing: make → making, run → running, see → seeing.
  • Irregular: go, went, gone · be, was, been · see, saw, seen · man → men · child → children · mouse → mice.
  • Older (King James) forms: -eth = -s (he loveth = he loves) · -est with “thou” (thou lovest) · spake = spoke.

English Dictionary · 107,383 entries · Sources & licences

quill

/kwɪl/ noun, verb, proper noun

Forms quills quilling quilled

  1. noun The lower shaft of a feather, specifically the region lacking barbs.
  2. noun A pen made from a feather.
  3. noun (by extension) Any pen. “He picked up his quill and wrote a poem.”
  4. noun 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.
  5. noun A thin piece of bark, especially of cinnamon or cinchona, curled up into a tube.
  6. noun (zoology) The pen of a squid.
  7. noun (music) The plectrum with which musicians strike the strings of certain instruments.
  8. noun (music) The tube of a musical instrument.
  9. verb To pierce with quills. (Usually in the passive voice, as be quilled or get quilled.)
  10. verb (figuratively) To write.
  11. verb To form fabric into small, rounded folds.
  12. verb To decorate with quillwork.
  13. verb (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).
  14. proper noun A surname from Irish.

Synonyms

calamus feather pen quill pen flight feather pinion quill feather shaft

Etymology

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- (“to pierce, stick”).
Compare Middle High German kil (“large feather, quill”), which is derived from the Low German term.

Reduced Anglicized form of Irish Ó Cuill (“descendant of Coll”), a byname from coll (“hazel tree”).

Webster’s 1913

  1. noun One of the large feathers of a bird's wing, or one of the rectrices of the tail; also, the stock of such a feather.
  2. noun A pen for writing made by sharpening and splitting the point or nib of the stock of a feather; as, history is the proper subject of his quill. Sir H. Wotton.
  3. verb To plaint in small cylindrical ridges, called quillings; as, to quill a ruffle.
  4. verb To wind on a quill, as thread or yarn. Judd.

Etymology [Perhaps fr. F. quille ninepin (see Kayless); but cf. also G. kiel a quill. MHG. kil, and Ir. cuille a quill.]

Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “quill”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details

Sanskrit

Sanskrit dictionary entries whose meaning includes “quill” (best matches first).