Word.ws English Dictionary

quilly

UK/ˈkwɪli/

quilly adjective: pertaining to or resembling a quill.

Adjective

quilly (comparative more quilly, superlative most quilly)

  1. Pertaining to or resembling a quill.
    • The fabrick of the wing, as it appears through a moderately magnifying Microscope, seems to be a body consisting of two parts […]; the one is a quilly or finny substance, consisting of several long, slender and variously bended quills or wires, something resembling the veins of leaves […].1665, Robert Hooke, Micrographia, section XXXVIII
  2. With quills; quilled.
    • […] sometimes you may even run across a quilly ball lying right on top of the ledge, or catch one of the numerous porcupine family picking its way leisurely among the rocks.2005, Jean M. Thompson, Wild Kindred of Fur, Feather and Fin, page 79

Forms of quilly

comparativemore quilly
superlativemost quilly

Origin of quilly

From quill + -y.

Words that rhyme with quilly

22 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about quilly

What does quilly mean?
Quilly means pertaining to or resembling a quill.
What part of speech is quilly?
Quilly is an adjective.
How do you pronounce quilly?
Quilly is pronounced /ˈkwɪli/ (UK).

Words near quilly in the dictionary

  1. quilltails
  2. quillwork
  3. quillworks
  4. quillwort
  5. quillworts
  6. quilly
  7. Quilmes
  8. Quilo
  9. Quilo-quilo North
  10. Quilo-quilo South
  11. Quiloa

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: quilly (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: “quilly.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/quilly. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.