Word.ws English Dictionary

pastil

pastil is the obsolete spelling of pastille.

pastil is the obsolete spelling of pastel.

Meaning of pastille

Noun

pastille (plural pastilles)

  1. A flavoured candy or sweet, often round and somewhat flat in shape.
  2. Any small, usually round and somewhat flat, granular piece of material; a tablet.
    • Watercolors of professional quality come in small pastilles of dry pigment, in pans of semi-moist paint, or in tubes or bottles of liquid watercolor.2003, The Complete Drawing & Painting Course, →ISBN, page 201
    1. (historical, specifically) A small pellet containing aromatic substances, burned to diffuse a fragrance or to disinfect or fumigate.
      • At the end he felt faint and sick, and having lit some Algerian pastilles in a pierced copper brazier, he bathed his hands and forehead with a cool musk-scented vinegar.1891, Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray
  3. (historical, pharmacy) A medicinal pill, originally made of compressed herbs.
    • In the desperate search for amatory satisfactions, the most monstrous ingredients have throughout the ages, been sought and compounded into electuaries and pastilles, philtres and ointments.1961, Harry E. Wedeck, Dictionary of Aphrodisiacs, New York: The Citadel Press, page 14
  4. (pharmacy) A candy- or sweet-like lozenge, which, when sucked, releases substances that soothe a sore throat, and sometimes vapours to help unblock the nose or sinuses.
    Synonyms:
    cough drop, troche

See all 6 meanings of pastille

Meaning of pastel

Noun (1)

pastel (countable and uncountable, plural pastels)

  1. Any of several subdued tints of colors, usually associated with pink, peach, yellow, green, blue, and lavender.
  2. A drawing made with any of those colors.
  3. A type of dried paste used to make crayons.
  4. A crayon made from such a paste.
  5. Woad.
    • Wool was dyed in the pastel vat.

Noun (2)

pastel (countable and uncountable, plural pastels or pasteles)

  1. A traditional dish in various Latin American countries and in Indonesia, resembling a tamale, pasty, or calzone.

See all 7 meanings of pastel

Forms of pastil

pluralpastils

Words formed from pastil

Questions about pastil

What is pastil the obsolete spelling of?
Pastil is the obsolete spelling of pastille.

Words near pastil in the dictionary

  1. pastiera
  2. pastieras
  3. pasties
  4. pastiest
  5. pastiglia
  6. pastil
  7. pastila
  8. pastile
  9. pastiles
  10. pastilla
  11. pastillage

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pastil (page history and authors); pastille (page history and authors); pastel (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “pastil.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/pastil. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.