[f. QUILL sb.1]
1. trans. To form into small cylindrical plaits or folds resembling a quill; to goffer.
1712. Steele, Spect., No. 478, ¶ 12. It might have been as expensive in queen Elisabeth’s time only to wash and quill a ruff.
1758–65. Goldsm., Ess., v. Wks. (Globe), 296/1. His cravat seemed quilled into a ruff.
1865. Art Jrnl., No. 321. 91/2. ‘Quilled’ her frills as usual.
1869. Mrs. Whitney, We Girls, V. (1873), 82. Ribbon that she was quilling up.
2. To cut the quills off (a wing). rare–1.
1710–1. Swift, Lett. (1767), III. 115. As for Patrick’s bird … His wings have been quilled thrice, and are now up again.
3. To cover with, or as with, quills.
1783. Wolcott (P. Pindar), Ode to R. A.’s, Wks. 1812, I. 64. Thou’rt like a hedgehog quill’d By the dire shafts of merciless Ridicule.
1814. Southey, Roderick, XVII. His whole body had been gored with wounds, And quill’d with spears.
b. To fit (a harpsichord) with quills.
1785. [see QUILLING vbl. sb.].
4. intr. To wind thread or yarn on a quill; to fill spools.
c. 1640. [see QUILLING vbl. sb.].
1825. Knapp & Baldw., Newgate Cal., III. 377/1. Quilling, i. e. putting silk on a shuttle.
1845. S. Judd, Margaret, ii. 9. The child Margaret sits … with a small wheel, winding spools, in our vernacular ‘quilling.’
1886. [see QUILL sb.1 1 b].
