Quillet
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 A quibble, an evasive distinction.
"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."
- 2 A small plot of land; historically: a strip of land that together with others like it formed a larger field. regional
"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."
Example
More examples"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."
Etymology
Uncertain. Possibly a shortening of earlier quillity, itself of uncertain origin, or from Latin quidlibet (“anything”).
Uncertain. Possibly from Anglo-Norman/Old French cueillette (“uncultivated strip of land for the gathering of herbs, berries, snails, etc.”).
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.