quills

noun

1. 1

   The lower shaft of a feather, specifically the region lacking barbs.

2. 2

   A pen made from a feather.

3. 3

   Any pen.

   “He picked up his quill and wrote a poem.”

4. 4

   A sharply pointed, barbed, and easily detached needle-like structure that grows on the skin of a porcupine or hedgehog as a defense against predators.

5. 5

   A thin piece of bark, especially of cinnamon or cinchona, curled up into a tube.

6. 6

   The pen of a squid.

7. 7

   The plectrum with which musicians strike the strings of certain instruments.

8. 8

   The tube of a musical instrument.

9. 9

   Something having the form of a quill, such as the fold or plain of a ruff, or a spindle, or spool, upon which the thread for the woof is wound in a shuttle.