WORD FOR THE DAY

Your word for today is: pill, n.1

pill, n.1
 
Pronunciation: Brit. /pɪl/,  U.S. /pɪl/

Forms:  OE–ME pul,   OE–ME pyl,   OE–ME (18 Eng. regional (Somerset)) pull,   OE–ME (18– Eng. regional) pyll,   lOE– pill,   ME pil,   ME pule,   ME pulle,   ME pylle,   ME–15 pille,   16 pile.

Etymology:Origin uncertain; probably related to pool n.1, although if so the nature of the relationship is unclear; a derivation from Welsh pwll pool n.1 (although this is first attested later) seems semantically attractive, but poses phonological problems.

The word seems always to have been commonest around the Severn estuary. Although place names suggest a distribution reaching at one time as far north as Lancashire and Cheshire and as far east as Sussex, the pattern is predominantly south-western. The bulk of the Old English charter evidence is from Somerset, Gloucestershire, and Worcestershire. Eng. Dial. Dict. (at cited word) records the word in use in Worcestershire, Herefordshire, Pembrokeshire, Gloucestershire, Somerset, and Cornwall.


It is uncertain whether there is any connection with Irish English (Kilkenny) pill eroded part of a river bank, unloading bank for boats (19th and 20th cent.; also as the name of a tributary of the river Suir: see further S. Moylan Lang. Kilkenny (1996) at cited word).

Now Eng. regional (south-west.) and Welsh English (Pembrokeshire).
 
A tidal inlet on the coast, a small creek or bay; a pool, spec. one in an inlet or at the confluence of a tributary stream.

OE Bounds (Sawyer 401) in  W. de G. Birch Cartularium Saxonicum (1887) II. 344 Of bradan bricge þæt on holan pyl, & of holan pylle on wincan hammes dic, & of wincan hammes dic innan miclan pyl, & of miclan pylle þæt æft on sæferne.

OE Royal Charter: Offa of Mercia to St. Mary's Church, Worcester (Sawyer 126) in  D. Hooke Worcs. Anglo-Saxon Charter-bounds (1990) 87 Of seges mere in þæs pulles heafod..of ðorn bryc[ge] in þone pull, & æfter þam pulle in baka brycge.

c1175 (OE) Bounds (Sawyer 664) in  W. de G. Birch Cartularium Saxonicum (1893) III. 113 Andlang dice west on gerihte on smita pull, of smita pylle west rihte on blaca ford,..eft on gerihte innan myccla pyll, of myccla pylle on smala pyll,..on ða dic innan hola pyll, and lang hola pylles eft on ða mær dic.

?a1300 Iacob & Iosep (Bodl.) (1916) 18 Hi floten swiþe riued bi dich & bi pulle

c1425  in  E. Edwards Liber Monasterii de Hyda (1866) 87 Thanne fro Mychildefer to the pole..thanne fro the hornewey to the forseyd pylle [c1425 (OE) pylle; L. puteum].

?1440  tr.  Palladius De Re Rustica (Duke Humfrey) (1896) i. 1032 A sobur brook amydde or ellis a welle With pullis [L. lacunas] faire.

a1500 (1400) Ipomedon (Chetham) (1889) 6363, I can not verely tell the daye, Whedur hit were pul or pande [rhyme lande].

1542–3 Act 34 & 35 Hen. VIII c. 9 §1 Dwellers next vnto the streme of Seuerne, & vnto the crikes & pilles of the same.

1587  W. Harrison Hist. Descr. Iland Brit. (new ed.) i. xii. 63/2 in Holinshed's Chron. (new ed.) I, In like maner from saint Iustes pill or creeke (for both signifie one thing).

1603  G. Owen Descr. Penbrokshire (1892) 66 At the Mouthe of Millford havon..at a place called west pill: where the one side of the pill you shall perceave the lyme~stone.

c1630  T. Risdon Chorogr. Surv. Devon (1810) §272 282 Whereby the sea shooteth up with many branches, men call them piles, very commodious for mills.

1704  in  B. Y. Mod. Pract. Court Exchequer (1730) 114 All the Rivers, Creeks, Pills and Streams on both sides of the Harbour or River up to the Key of Truro.

1787  J. Byng Diary 30 July in Torrington Diaries (1934) I. 278 It was impossible to prevent smuggling, as all their vessels run into the pills (the small bays) of the coast.

1832 Act 2 & 3 Will. IV c. 64 Sched. O. 23 Along the river Usk to the point at which the same is joined by a pill opposite the castle.

1840 Archaeologia 28 19 The term Pyll is still used, and means a Creek subject to the tide The pylls are the channels through which the drainings of the marshes enter the river.

1880  T. Q. Couch Gloss. Words E. Cornwall in Gloss. Cornwall 96 Pill, a pool in a creek.

1969  M. Wiggin Cottage Idyll iii. 59 This rare, weird game of wild-fowling, lying out on marshes and saltings, struggling through mud and across treacherous pills and creeks.

2001 Western Daily Press (Nexis) 4 Aug. 14 The village had been served by a sheltered tidal creek or ‘pill’ which was subject to extreme rises and falls in the water level.

Compounds

 pill-reed n. (in form pull-reed) Eng. regional (Somerset) = pool reed n. at pool n.1 Compounds 2.

1847  J. O. Halliwell Dict. Archaic & Provinc. Words II, Pull-reed, a long reed used for ceilings instead of laths. Somerset.

pill yawl n. now rare a sprit-rigged, three-masted boat used in the Bristol Channel.

1883 Boats of World 30 The Bristol Channel, where the Pill Yawls, large or small, decked or undecked, hold their own with any craft of their size.

1929  F. C. Bowen Sea Slang 103 Pill Yawl, a Bristol Channel pilot boat.

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