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quillet. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word
quillet, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say
quillet in singular and plural. Everything you need to know about the word
quillet you have here. The definition of the word
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English
Pronunciation
Etymology 1
Uncertain. Possibly a shortening of earlier quillity, itself of uncertain origin, or from Latin quidlibet (“anything”).
Noun
quillet (plural quillets)
- A quibble, an evasive distinction.
c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies (First Folio), London: Isaac Iaggard, and Ed Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, , page 277, column 2:There’s another : why might not that bee the Scull of a Lawyer ? where be his Quiddits now ? his Quillets ? his Caſes ? his Tenures, and his Tricks ? why doe’s he ſuffer this rude knaue now to knocke him about the Sconce with a dirty Shouell, and will not tell him of his Action of Battery ? hum.
1624, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], The Anatomy of Melancholy: , 2nd edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry Cripps, →OCLC:Hence it comes that such a pack of vile buffoons [...] intrude with unwashed feet upon the sacred precinct of Theology, bringing with them nothing save brazen impudence, and some hackneyed quillets and scholastic trifles not good enough for a crowd at a street corner.
Etymology 2
Uncertain. Possibly from Anglo-Norman/Old French cueillette (“uncultivated strip of land for the gathering of herbs, berries, snails, etc.”).
Noun
quillet (plural quillets)
- (now regional) A small plot of land; historically: a strip of land that together with others like it formed a larger field.
1908, Sabine Baring-Gould, “Hugh Stafford and the Royal Wilding”, in Devonshire Characters and Strange Events, London: John Lane, page 7:The single and only [Royal Wilding apple] tree from which the apple was first propagated is very tall, fair, and stout ; I believe it stands about twenty feet high. It stands in a very little quillet (as we call it) of gardening, adjoining to the post-road that leads from Exeter to Oakhampton, in the parish of St. Thomas, but near the borders of another parish called Whitestone.
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