quill
part of speech
noun (a quill, quills)
meaning for a pupil
1) A quill is a pen made from a large bird feather, with the end sharpened and dipped in ink, used for writing long ago. tree →
2) A quill is also a large, stiff feather from a bird's wing or tail. tree →
3) The sharp spines on a porcupine or hedgehog are also called quills. tree →
sense in the lessons
In history lessons pupils learn that before metal nibs and ballpoint pens people wrote with quills made from goose or swan feathers, and that important old documents were written with them. In science lessons porcupine quills are a defence adaptation. In stories, writers and wizards write with quills.
examples
- People long ago wrote with a quill and ink. tree →
- She dipped the quill in the inkpot. tree →
- The quill was made from a goose feather. tree →
- The porcupine raised its quills to warn the dog. tree →
- Hedgehog quills are stiff and sharp. tree →
- In the wizard school story, pupils write with quills. tree →
- We tried to write our names with a quill in the museum. tree →
- ‘In the window was an old quill pen. tree →
note
Plural «quills». Countable: «a quill». A porcupine cannot shoot its quills — that is a myth; they come out when they stick into an attacker.
In the corpora
- Porcupines cannot shoot their quills; the barbed quills come out easily when touched and stick into the attacker.
- A North American porcupine has about 30,000 quills, and it rattles them and stamps as a warning first.
- The American and the African and Asian porcupines are only distant relatives, and many scientists think they grew quills separately.
- Porcupines can't shoot their quills; the quills come loose easily when touched and stick into an attacker.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «quill» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.