pill

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   something unpleasant or offensive that must be tolerated or endured

   Your competitor's success was a bitter pill to take.

2. 2
   noun

   A small, usually round or cylindrical object designed for easy swallowing, usually containing some sort of medication.

   Take two pills every hour in the apyrexia of intermittent fever, until eight are taken.

3. 3
   noun

   Contraceptive medication, usually in the form of a pill to be taken by a woman; an oral contraceptive pill.

   Jane went on the pill when she left for college.

4. 4
   noun

   Something offensive, unpleasant or nauseous which must be accepted or endured.

   "It's a sad unpalatable truth," said Mr. Pembroke, thinking that the despondency might be personal, "but one must accept it. My sister and Gerald, I am thankful to say, have accepted it, so naturally it has been a little pill."

5. 5
   noun

   A contemptible, annoying, or unpleasant person.

   You see, he's egging Phyllis on to marry Wilbert Cream. [...] And when a man like that eggs, something has to give, especially when the girl's a pill like Phyllis, who always does what Daddy tells her.

6. 6
   noun

   A small piece of any substance, for example a ball of fibers formed on the surface of a textile fabric by rubbing.

   One sleeve, threadbare and loaded with what my mother called “sweater pills,” hung halfway to the floor.

7. 7
   noun

   A baseball.

   "Strike two!" bawled the umpire. I threw the pill back to Tom with a heart which drummed above the noise of the rooters along the side lines.

8. 8
   verb

   Of a woven fabric surface, to form small matted balls of fiber.

   This sweater is already pilled: it fuzzed after the very first wash.

Etymology

From Middle English *pill, *pyll, from Old English pyll (“a pool, pill”), from Proto-Germanic *pullijaz (“small pool, ditch, creek”), diminutive of Proto-Germanic *pullaz (“pool, stream”), from Proto-Indo-European *bl̥nos (“bog, marsh”). Cognate with Old English pull (“pool, creek”), Scots poll (“slow moving stream, creek, inlet”), Icelandic pollur (“pond, pool, puddle”). More at pool.