Spike vs Quill - What's the difference?

spike | quill |

As proper nouns the difference between spike and quill

is that spike is while quill is .

spike

English

Noun

(en noun)

An ear of corn or grain.

# (botany) A kind of inflorescence in which sessile flowers are arranged on an unbranched elongated axis.

oil of spike

Something pointed or sharp.

# A sort of very large nail; anything resembling such a nail in shape.

#* Addison

He wears on his head the corona radiata ; the spikes that shoot out represent the rays of the sun.

# The long, narrow part of a woman's high-heeled shoe that elevates the heel.

# A sharp peak in a graph.

# a surge in power.

# (informal) In spikes : running shoes with spikes in the soles.

# (volleyball) An attack from, usually, above the height of the net performed with the intent to send the ball straight to the floor of the opponent or off the hands of the opposing block.

(zoology) An adolescent male deer.

(slang) The casual ward of a workhouse.

* 1933 : , p. 139.

"Dere's tay spikes', and cocoa '''spikes''', and skilly ' spikes ."

Synonyms

* catkin, raceme, cluster, corymb, umbel

Derived terms

Verb

(spik)

To fix on a spike; to pierce or run through with a spike.

# To fasten with spikes, or long, large nails.

to spike down planks

# To set or furnish with spikes.

(Young)

# (military) To render (a gun) unusable by driving a metal spike into its touch hole.

#* 1834 , (Frederick Marryat), Peter Simple :

He jumped down, wrenched the hammer from the armourer’s hand, and seizing a nail from the bag, in a few moments he had spiked the gun.

#* 1990 , (Peter Hopkirk), The Great Game , Folio Society 2010, p. 235-6:

Small skirmishes also took place, and the Afghans managed to seize a pair of mule-guns and force the British to spike and abandon two other precious guns.

# (journalism) To decide not to publish or make public. (From the former practice of newspaper editors impaling sheets of typewritten articles not selected for publication on a metal spike or spindle placed on their desks: see 2010 quotation.)

#* '>citation

# (American football) To slam a football to the ground, usually in celebration of scoring a touchdown, or to stop expiring time on the game clock after snapping the ball as to save time for the losing team to attempt to score the tying or winning points.

# (volleyball) To attack from, usually, above the height of the net with the intent to send the ball straight to the floor of the opponent or off the hands of the opposing block.

To increase sharply.

Traffic accidents spiked in December when there was ice on the roads.

To add a small amount of one substance to another.

The water sample to be tested has been spiked with arsenic, antimony, mercury, and lead in quantities commonly found in industrial effluents.

* '>citation

# (specifically) To covertly put alcohol or another intoxicating substance into food or drink.

She spiked my lemonade with vodka!

Derived terms

* spike someone's guns

Synonyms

* (volleyball): attack, hit

Anagrams

* * * English terms with multiple etymologies

quill

English

Noun

(en noun)

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

A pen made from a feather.

(figuratively) Any pen.Oxford English Dictionary , 2nd ed., 1989.

He picked up his quill and wrote a poem.

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.

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

The pen of a squid.

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

(music) The tube of a musical instrument.

* Milton

He touched the tender stops of various quills .

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

Verb

(en verb)

To pierce or be pierced with quills.

* 1966 , David Francis Costello, The World of the Porcupine , J. B. Lippincott & Company, page 66:

Coyotes, bears, and mountain lions which occasionally kill porcupines are sometimes quilled .

* 2010 , Mark Parman, A Grouse Hunter's Almanac: The Other Kind of Hunting , University of Wisconsin Press, ISBN 978-0-299-24920-5, page 49:

Then one of my dogs got quilled , and it happened again a month later. After putting the dog in a headlock, yanking out several dozen quills, and spurting blood all over myself and the decking of the back porch, I at least understood his antiporcupine venom.

(figuratively) To write.

* 1939 , , Finnegans Wake , page 182:

Nibs never would have quilled a seriph to sheepskin.

* 1976 , , Investigative Poetry , City Lights (1976), page 11:

One has only to recall that Coleridge and Wordsworth one day were lounging by the sea shore, while nearby sat an English police agent on snitch patrol prepared to rush to headquarters to quill a report about the conversation.

To form fabric into small, rounded folds.

To decorate with quillwork.

* 2007 , David J. Wishart, Encyclopedia of the Great Plains Indians , University of Nebraska Press (2007), ISBN 0-8032-9862-5, page 32:

Another characteristic of Plains Indians was the fairly strict division between art made and used by men and art made and used by women. Although men and women sometimes cooperated, women usually painted or quilled very balanced, controlled geometric designs on dresses, moccasins, robes, bags, and containers.

References

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