quillet

See also: quillet-

English

Pronunciation

  • (UK) IPA(key): /ˈkwɪlɪt/

Etymology 1

Shortened from quillity.

Noun

quillet (plural quillets)

  1. A quibble, an evasive distinction.
    • 1602, William Shakespeare, Hamlet, act V, scene 1:
      Where be his quiddities now - his quillets, his cases, his tenures and his tricks?
    • 1621, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], The Anatomy of Melancholy, Oxford: Printed by Iohn Lichfield and Iames Short, for Henry Cripps, OCLC 216894069; The Anatomy of Melancholy: […], 2nd corrected and augmented edition, Oxford: Printed by John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry Cripps, 1624, OCLC 54573970, (please specify |partition=1, 2, or 3):
      , NYRB, 2001, volume 1, page 327-8:
      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

From Anglo-Norman/Old French cueillette (“uncultivated strip of land for the gathering of herbs, berries, snails, etc.”).

Noun

quillet (plural quillets)

  1. (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 […] 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.
Synonyms
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