Pill
Pill , noun
[Compare Peel skin, or Pillion.]
The peel or skin. [Obsolete]
Some be covered over with crusts, or hard pills, as the locusts.
Pill , intransitive verb
To be peeled; to peel off in flakes.
Pill , transitive verb
[Compare Latin pilare to deprive of hair, and English pill, n. (above).]
1.
To deprive of hair; to make bald. [Obsolete]
2.
To peel; to make by removing the skin.
[Jacob] pilled white streaks... in the rods.
Pill , verb, transitive and intransitive
[French piller, Latin pilare; compare Italian pigliare to take. Compare Peel to plunder.]
To rob; to plunder; to pillage; to peel. See Peel, to plunder. [Obsolete] — Spenser
Pillers and robbers were come in to the field to pill and to rob.
Pill , noun
[French pilute, Latin pilula a pill, little ball, dim. of Latin pila a ball. Compare Piles.]
1.
A medicine in the form of a little ball, or small round mass, to be swallowed whole.
2.
Figuratively, something offensive or nauseous which must be accepted or endured. — Udall
Collocations (2)
Pill beetle (Zoology) , any small beetle of the genus Byrrhus, having a rounded body, with the head concealed beneath the thorax.
Pill bug (Zoology) , any terrestrial isopod of the genus Armadillo, having the habit of rolling itself into a ball when disturbed. Called also pill wood louse.