squill

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As the bottle glints, blue as a squill or a hyacinth, blue as the meadows of Elysium or the eyes of girls loved by young poets, meseems the racing pen might almost gain upon the thoughts that are turning the bend in the road.

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Definitions (17)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (3)

  1. noun Any of several bulbous Eurasian and African plants of the genus Scilla, having narrow leaves and bell-shaped blue, white, or pink flowers.
  2. noun See sea onion.
  3. noun The dried inner scales of the bulbs of any of these plants, used as rat poison and formerly as a cardiac stimulant, expectorant, and diuretic.

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Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (1)

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This word has been looked up 115 times.

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Etymologies (3)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Middle English, from Latin scilla, squilla, shrimp, squill, from Greek skilla.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (2)

  1. from Middle English squille, squylle, sqwylle, squyle, from Old French squille, scille, French squille, scille = Spanish esquila = Portuguese scilla = Italian squilla, from Latin squilla, scilla, squill, = Greek σκίλλα, squill, perhaps for *σκίδλα (as equivalent σχῖνος for *σχίδνος), and so called from its splitting easily into scales, from σχίζειν, split: see schism.
  2. from Latin squilla, scilla, a small fish of the lobster kind, a prawn, shrimp, so called from a supposed resemblance to the bulb or plant of the same name: see squill.
 

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/skwɪl/
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