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quillet

American

[kwil-it] / ˈkwɪl ɪt /

noun

Archaic.

a subtlety or quibble.

quillet British

/ ˈkwɪlɪt /

noun

archaic a quibble or subtlety

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Other Word Forms

quilleted adjective

Etymology

Origin of quillet

1580–90; earlier quillity, variant of quiddity

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

Ready at all times for such emergencies, the leader would not suffer himself to be found without every conceivable legal quillet, sharpened and retouched, against the official orders.

From Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 by Various

Again, another preaches to the Indians or the Japanese, gives up his substance, begs his bread from door to door, and leaves the devil's advocate scarcely a quillet or a quiddity against him.

From A Vanished Arcadia: being some account of the Jesuits in Paraguay 1607-1767 by Cunninghame Graham, R. B. (Robert Bontine)

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023