pill
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: enpr: pĭl
ipa: /pɪl/
ipa: [pʰɪɫ]
rhymes: -ɪl
Forms: form: pills
Etymology: * From Middle English pille (also pillem), a borrowing from Middle Low German pille or Middle Dutch pille (whence Dutch pil), probably from Latin pila, pilula.
* (persuade or convince): Generalized from red pill.
Senses: examples: text: Take two pills every hour in the apyrexia of intermittent fever, until eight are taken.
ref: 1864, Benjamin Ellis, The Medical Formulary:
glosses: A small, usually round or cylindrical object designed for easy swallowing, usually containing some sort of medication.
glosses: A small, usually round or cylindrical object designed for easy swallowing, usually containing some sort of medication.
Such an object that is of solid constitution (usually of compressed, bonded powder) rather than a capsule (with a shell containing loose powder or liquid).
coordinate_terms: capsule
qualifier: strictly
examples: text: Jane went on the pill when she left for college.
text: She got pregnant one month after going off the pill.
text: I'm tearing down your brooder house / 'Cause now I've got the pill
ref: 1975, “The Pill”, in Back to the Country, performed by Loretta Lynn:
text: Many specialists are requesting that this vitamin be included in all contraceptive pills, as women on the pill have a tendency to be depressed.
ref: 1986, Jurriaan Plesman, Getting Off the Hook: Treatment of Drug Addiction and Social Disorders Through Body and Mind:
qualifier: i.e. used with "the"
glosses: Contraceptive medication, usually in the form of a pill to be taken by a woman; an oral contraceptive pill.
examples: text: "It's a sad unpalatable truth," said Mr. Pembroke, thinking that the despondency might be personal, "but one must accept it. My sister and Gerald, I am thankful to say, have accepted it, so naturally it has been a little pill."
ref: 1907, E.M. Forster, The Longest Journey, Part I, III [Uniform ed., p. 45]
glosses: Something offensive, unpleasant or nauseous which must be accepted or endured.
examples: text: You see, he's egging Phyllis on to marry Wilbert Cream. [...] And when a man like that eggs, something has to give, especially when the girl's a pill like Phyllis, who always does what Daddy tells her.
ref: 1960, P. G. Wodehouse, Jeeves in the Offing, chapter IV:
text: Instead, I saw a woman in her mid-fifties, who was a real pill; while all the others had managed a decent “So pleased,” or even a plain “Hello,” Ginger just inclined her head, as if she was doing a Queen Mary imitation.
ref: 2000, Susan Isaacs, Shining Through:
glosses: A contemptible, annoying, or unpleasant person.
glosses: A comical or entertaining person.
examples: text: One sleeve, threadbare and loaded with what my mother called “sweater pills,” hung halfway to the floor.
ref: 1999, Wally Lamb, I Know This Much Is True:
topics: business
manufacturing
textiles
synonyms: bobble
crawbeen
fuzzball
lint ball
glosses: A small piece of any substance, for example a ball of fibers formed on the surface of a textile fabric by rubbing.
examples: text: "Strike two!" bawled the umpire. I threw the pill back to Tom with a heart which drummed above the noise of the rooters along the side lines.
ref: 1931, Canadian National Magazine, page 17:
text: Mr. Fisher contributed to the Sox effort when he threw the pill past second baseman Rath after Felsch hit him a comebacker.
ref: 2002, John Klima, Pitched Battle: 35 of Baseball's Greatest Duels from the Mound:
topics: ball-games
baseball
games
hobbies
lifestyle
sports
glosses: A baseball.
topics: engineering
firearms
government
military
natural-sciences
physical-sciences
politics
tools
war
weaponry
glosses: A bullet (projectile).
topics: computing
engineering
graphical-user-interface
mathematics
natural-sciences
physical-sciences
sciences
glosses: A rounded rectangle containing a brief text caption indicating the tag or category that an item belongs to.
Synonyms: sense: small object for swallowing
word: tablet
sense: bullet
word: cap
Derived terms: abortion pill
antipill
birth pill
bitter pill
bitter pill to swallow
black-pill
black pill
blue pill
blue-pill
boner pill
bread pill
chicken pill
chill pill
difficult pill to swallow
dinner pill
dogpill
forget to take one's pills this morning
gild the pill
go pill
happy pill
hard pill
hard pill to swallow
horse pill
little blue pill
love pill
minipill
morning-after pill
nanopill
no-go pill
on the pill
orange pill
party pill
peaceful pill
peace pill
pep pill
perpetual pill
pill beetle
pill board
pill bottle
pill-box
pillbox
pill bug
pillbug
pill driver
pill gun
pillhead
pill in the pocket
pillmaker
pillmaking
pill mill
pill millipede
pillmonger
pill pocket
pill-popper
pill popper
pill press
pill pusher
pill reminder
pill rolling
pill tile
pill to swallow
pill up
pillworm
pillwort
pilly
pinkpill
poison pill
polypill
pop pills
postpill
power pill
prepill
purple pill
radio pill
radiopill
red pill
silly pill
sleeping pill
smart pill
sugarcoat a bitter pill
sugarcoat the pill
sugar pill
superpill
swallow a bitter pill
sweeten the pill
take a pill
take the red pill
tough pill to swallow
Ward's pill
water pill
white pill