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pill¹

(pĭl)

1. A small pellet or tablet of medicine, often coated, taken by swallowing whole or by chewing.

2. Informal An oral contraceptive. Used with the.

3. Slang Something, such as a baseball, that resembles a pellet of medicine.

4. Something both distasteful and necessary.

5. Slang An insipid or ill-natured person.

v. pilled, pil·ling, pills

v.tr.

1. To dose with pills.

2. To make into pills.

3. Slang To blackball.

v.intr.

To form small balls resembling pills: a sweater that pills.

[Middle English pille, from Middle Dutch or Middle Low German pille and Old French pile, all from Latin pilula, diminutive of pila, ball; see PELLET.]

pill²

(pĭl)

v. pilled, pil·ling, pills

v.intr.
Chiefly British

To come off, as in flakes or scales.

v.tr.
Archaic

To subject to extortion.

[Middle English pillen, to plunder, peel, from Old English pilian; see PEEL¹ and from Old French piller, to plunder; see PILLAGE.]

Indo-European & Semitic Roots Appendices

Thousands of entries in the dictionary include etymologies that trace their origins back to reconstructed proto-languages. You can obtain more information about these forms in our online appendices:

Indo-European Roots

Semitic Roots

The Indo-European appendix covers nearly half of the Indo-European roots that have left their mark on English words. A more complete treatment of Indo-European roots and the English words derived from them is available in our Dictionary of Indo-European Roots.

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