▪ I. quillet, n.1
(ˈkwɪlɪt)
Also 6 coylett, quyllett, 6–7 quillett.
[Of obscure origin.]
1. A small plot or narrow strip of land. Now only local or Antiq.
| 1533–4 Act 25 Hen. VIII, c. 13 §10 No maner person..shall take in ferme..any quillettes of landes or pastures. 1538 Leland Itin. IV. 82 §2 Impropriating Benefices unto them and giving them Coyletts of Land. c 1640 J. Smyth Lives Berkeleys (1883) I. 151 Reducinge his scattered quillets of ground togeather into entire enclosures. 1774 T. West Antiq. Furness p. xlv, The abbots of Furness permitted the inhabitants to enclose quillets to their houses. 1824 Heber Jrnl. 9 Aug., Each quillet..had its little stage and shed for the watchman. 1888 Archæolog. Rev. Mar. 17 The fields..in North Wales are still, in many cases, divided into..‘quillets’, that is to say, into open strips marked off from each other merely by boundary stones. |
† 2. A hamlet. Obs. rare—1.
| 1597–8 Act 39 Eliz. c. 25 The sayde Hundred doth consiste onely of five small villages and thre small Quyllettes or Hamlettes. |
▪ II. quillet, n.2
(ˈkwɪlɪt)
Also 7 quilit, 7–9 quillit.
[? Abbrev. of quillity; cf. quip, quippy and quiddit, quiddity.]
A verbal nicety or subtle distinction; a quirk, quibble.
| 1588 Shakes. L.L.L. iv. iii. 288 Some tricks, some quillets, how to cheat the diuell. 1609 Holland Amm. Marcell. xxx. iv. 386 Linking and entangling causes with insoluble quirkes and quilits. 1674 Marvell Gen. Councils Wks. 1875 IV. 117 [Thou] didst ask them concerning a frivolous quillet of a question. 1708 Brit. Apollo No. 69. 3/2 Like Ignoramus, For Quillets most famous. 1818 Scott Hrt. Midl. x, Sharp⁓eyed as a lynx..in the nice sharp quillits of legal discussion. 1890 J. H. Stirling Gifford Lect. viii. 153 The word is too unequivocal for any quillet to be hung upon it. |
Hence † ˈquillet v. intr., to quibble. Obs.
| 1653 Holcroft Procopius i. xx. 25 It is inconvenient for men in hazard for the main, to quillet about the rest. |
▪ III. quillet, n.3
(ˈkwɪlɪt)
[app. f. quill n.1 + -et1.]
A small quill, or tube, etc., resembling this.
| 1872 C. M. Yonge P's & Q's ix. 95 Rolling up her papers into little quillets. 1876 Blackmore Cripps II. xiv. 211 Sprays, that..held in every downy quillet liquid, rather than solid, gem. 1879 Daily Tel. 29 May, As many codicils as there are paper quillets to a schoolboy's kite. |